14.10.2005

Bringing Muslims in From the Cold

Moscow has become the city in Europe with the largest Muslim population, and according to some estimates, traditionally Muslim ethnic groups will form the majority of Russia's draft-age youths by 2015. Unfortunately for the country's stability, the Russian government is relying on its usual methods to manage this crucial minority - coercion and statism. Even more so than with minority religious groups such as Buddhists or Protestants, with Muslims those methods are guaranteed to fail.

Russian ultranationalists dislike being reminded that, unlike Western Europe's Muslims, Russia's are indigenous. Muslim peoples lived in parts of present-day Russia before Christianity appeared there. Some regions, such as Dagestan, are more dominated by Muslim ethnic groups today than a generation ago, thanks to Slavic emigration. The challenge of governing such areas from Moscow increasingly resembles that of governing colonial Pakistan from London.

At the same time, Muslims have been moving en masse into the Russian heartland. It is getting difficult to find a medium-sized city anywhere in the country without a Muslim community.

Mosques have sprouted even in far-flung places like Yakutsk in northeastern Siberia. More and more Muslims from varied ethnic backgrounds are living side by side in majority-Slavic towns far from their homelands, sharing stories about police harassment and skinhead attacks. Russian is replacing Tatar in Moscow's mosques as the only language in which Tatars can communicate with Uzbeks and Azeris. This linguistic shift could potentially help integrate Muslims into Russian society and culture, but it could also promote a sense of pan-Muslim identity based explicitly on religion rather than ethnicity.

Sadly, the state often seems to be doing its best to keep Russia's Muslims alienated. Despite Islam's status as one of the country's four formally recognized "traditional" religions - along with Orthodox Christianity, Buddhism and Judaism - modern Russia's military commanders still fall short of their tsarist predecessors in accommodating the needs of Muslim troops.

Base commanders rarely make provisions for Muslim soldiers to hold congregational Friday prayers, in contrast to their close cooperation with Orthodox clerics in allowing liturgies, and sometimes go as far as not even allowing time for daily prayers, one of the "five pillars," or fundamental tenets, of Islam. Nor do they acknowledge Islam's special dietary rules by providing alternatives to pork-based sausage. Muslim draftees are often singled out for especially vicious hazing.

Discrimination against Russia's Protestants gets far more international publicity, but Muslims face similar problems in acquiring places for worship. Those in Kaliningrad have been trying for a decade to build a mosque, with one excuse after another being found to turn them down. Local authorities have prevented Muslims from acquiring land for a mosque in St. Petersburg and have repeatedly declined to return a historic mosque stolen by the Soviets in Stavropol. Elsewhere they have prosecuted Muslims on charges of illegal "extremism" simply for publicly preaching that Islam is superior to other religions.

With its deep-rooted penchant for centralized control, the Kremlin finds it especially hard to accept the reality that Islam is one of the most non-hierarchal of all world religions. It has continued the Soviet practice of artificially elevating the country's "Muslim spiritual directorates" - inviting their heads to ceremonial gatherings alongside the top Orthodox bishops, granting them preferred attention in the state-dominated news media and trumpeting their endorsements of government policies.

Grassroots Muslim organizations outside these structures mostly remain ignored, except when they are being demonized as "Wahhabis." In fact only a tiny fraction of Russia's Muslims have embraced the ultra-ascetic, 18th-century Arab movement known as Wahhabism, but Kremlin propagandists have adopted the term as an all-purpose slur against any Muslim whose political or religious activities they dislike. Rival Muslim factions even use the smear against each other. Ismagil Shangareyev, head of the Islamic Human Rights Center, which cooperates with Russian human-rights veterans such as Helsinki Group chairwoman Lyudmila Alexeyeva and human rights commissioner Oleg Mironov, has likened these tactics to the Stalinist witch hunts in which informers settled personal scores by denouncing their enemies as Trotskyites.

The quasi-official "spiritual directorates" originally created in the 18th century as tools of control of the tsarist state over religion had no historic or spiritual legitimacy in Islam. The Soviet regime harnessed them along with the Moscow Patriarchate, which was re-established after 1918, in its campaign against all forms of religion. Although it forcibly closed and even demolished mosques and churches, the secular state nourished a small elite of collaborationist clergy willing to compromise basic elements of their faith. As Moscow ethnographer Akhmet Yarlykapov has observed, to this day "any mufti assigned or imposed with the help of the government will be illegitimate in the eyes of believers," opening "a large place for oppositionist tendencies." Yarlykapov has called on the government to let Russia's Muslims generate their own "informal spiritual leaders," who would be in a far stronger position than the existing, artificial leadership to speak both for and to the Muslim populace.

Russia does face a genuine threat from radical Islamist terrorism, no less genuine for the fact that it is a threat created largely by the Kremlin itself as a result of its brutal tactics in Chechnya. But the suppression of all Muslim groups not effectively controlled by the state only aggravates that threat: Independent-minded Muslims find themselves with almost no channels of action except extremist groups. Duma Deputy Alexander Khinshtein has charged that some 90 percent of the country's criminal cases against Muslims for extremism or terrorism are fabricated, for example, with planted evidence. The victims of such abuse are naturally more likely to become terrorists.

During the Cold War, Americans debated whether to outlaw the Communist Party; finally, their government decided not to do so, in part for pragmatic reasons. Russia now faces a somewhat similar decision about radical Islam. A mufti in the Stavropol region told Geraldine Fagan of the Forum 18 News Service that the authorities have refused to register most Muslim congregations there "because they think that if they don't, the problem will disappear." On the contrary, he suggested, "if you register communities, then you can monitor them, but the authorities haven't grasped this yet."

Lawrence A. Uzzell is president of International Religious Freedom Watch, a Christian organization dedicated to protecting religious believers of all faiths from persecution by their own governments. He contributed this comment to The Moscow Times.

13.09.1946 - 07.09.2005 It breaks my heart to write my own father's obituary. For four long years he fought the cancer... But it wasn't the cancer that killed my father, it was the parasites who occupy our country. My father could have lost his life twelve years earlier, in October 1993, when he bravely fought in the streets against the occupying forces that controlled the Yeltsin regime. Since 1993 the Russian Nationalist Movement has numerous "ups" and "downs" but we should all remember Sept. - Oct. 1993 as a time when we had one of the strongest protests in our efforts to overthrow the Zionists. Generations of our older people, parents mostly, are Soviet people and they have not found a comfort zone in a world ruled by Zionist capital which was brought to Russia in the early 1990's. These older generations were just kids after WW2. They were born poor, and sadly, many have already died the same way. They were betrayed by part of the Soviet elite who turned from being Communists one day to Capitalists the next. The Jews, as always, were behind these betrayals with the promises of high-paying jobs in the new bureaucracy. The traitors, like most politicians everywhere, were eager to sell-out their countrymen for an easier life for themselves. It was the older generation who understood the meaning of patriotism. They are simple, honest, hard-working people who have fought for their country, albeit in a meaningless series of wars instigated by the Jews to line their own pockets. The Jews have actually ruled over Russia since the Revolution in 1917, and they also rule over the United States. They kept the Cold War going for 45 years making breathtaking profits by selling arms to both sides. The true Russian people are considered to be equal to cattle by the Jews who will never be satisfied until they rule the whole world. The Russian patriot is nothing more than cannon fodder to the Jews. The Russian "cattle" are herded along by TV shows (and other media) that have altered their culture, instilling in them the desire for material things instead of the love for the land and each other. Our people one trusted each other and would help total strangers who were in need. There were no civil wars in Russia during the 1990's but millions of "cattle" were lost anyway. After the Jews had raped the country since 1917 they decided to switch to Capitalism. With their ill-gotten gains they were allowed to buy virtually all of the country for a tiny fraction of what the country was worth. In their culture they consider that to be good business. Our parents built this nation and now it belongs to 1% of the population, mostly Jews and ex-KGB oligarchs (themselves mostly Jews) and some of the Russian traitors. My father worked for 36 years in a factory that builds big trucks. He was part of a working class that is no longer respected and lived in poverty. When he died he left nothing and it weighed heavily on his mind during his decline. I loved him and did my best to cheer him up in his final years. This year in Moscow the death rate is 1.7 times higher than the birth rate. The White population is declining world-wide due to abortions and the idea placed in women's minds that it is somehow belittling to raise a family instead of pursuing a career. We are living in a time when the death of our entire race can be foreseen. But our people are waking up very quickly now and I believe that our day of reckoning with the Jews is coming soon. When that day comes my father can rest in peace at last. We Live In Changing Times Certain Thoughts Are Now A Crime Power Flows Through An evil Pen And Freedom's Light Is Growing Dim One Day If Suddenly…

20.09.2005

Luzhkov Aims to Harness City's Soccer Fandom

Police holding back soccer fans waiting for the UEFA Cup-winning CSKA team at Sheremetyevo Airport on May 19

A new City Hall-backed organization of Moscow soccer fans aims to tackle terrorism, violence and extremism in what some see as a bid to build a base of grassroots youth support for Mayor Yury Luzhkov.

The Justice Ministry on Monday was set to register the Moscow Fans Union, a nonprofit organization drawing from seven soccer clubs in Moscow and the Moscow region that City Hall hopes will help promote nonviolence among rival fans and police, said Larissa Komissarova, one of the group's founders.

The union, whose Russian acronym is MOB, states in its charter that it will combat "terrorism, racism, chauvinism, and youth extremism," Komissarova said. The language echoes that of the pro-Kremlin youth movement Nashi, whose anti-fascist credentials have been questioned by human rights activists.

MOB leaders on Monday dismissed suggestions that the new organization was political in nature, stressing that the group was aimed at promoting a "family atmosphere" at soccer stadiums and preventing riots breaking out between rival clubs' fans at matches.

Komissarova, who heads Novy Vek, a foundation supporting the "rebirth of national traditions," said that plans for the union had been developed over the last three years as a joint effort between her foundation and the City Duma's family and youth affairs committee.

MOB plans to bring together fan clubs from Moscow teams CSKA, Spartak, Dynamo, Torpedo, Lokomotiv, Moskva and the Moscow region club Saturn, and will be headed by Moskva fan club president Vasily Petrakov, Komissarova said.

"Soccer games should be sporting celebrations, events that you can bring your mother, father and grandmother to," Komissarova said, noting that MOB would hold fans meetings to discuss strategies for avoiding violence.

Komissarova said the union would follow the Olympic principle of keeping politics and sports separate. "We will try to bring young people from these groups over to our side," Komissarova said, referring to extremists. "We want to show them that there is another way."

But on how MOB might tackle terrorism and extremism, she was less clear.

"How we'll be able to do this remains to be seen," she said.

Committee spokesman Mikhail Usachyov said the union's creation was part of a larger program, with Luzhkov's support, to reach out to young people, including the creation of a youth group called Grazhdanskaya Smena, or Civil Change, to promote civil duty and patriotism. In June, Luzhkov ordered department heads at City Hall to hire deputies under the age of 35 by year's end.

City Hall has not yet allocated funding for the union, and it would have to compete for financing against other projects, Usachyov said.

Political analyst Vladimir Pribylovsky, head of the Panorama think tank, said MOB was likely an attempt by Luzhkov to create a reserve of young people who could provide visible public support for him to remain in office or make a run for the presidency, assuming President Vladimir Putin did not stay on for a third term.

"He wants to have his people on the ground," Pribylovsky said of Luzhkov. "It would be like Nashi, but on a citywide rather than a national level."

Alexander Tarasov, a sociologist who studies left-wing youth groups, said that creating such a group for political purposes could be the start of a slippery slope. "The authorities think they can control such groups and that, if necessary, they will take to the streets yelling 'Down with Yabloko,' or 'Down with the Communists,'" Tarasov said.

But City Hall might not be fully taking into account the animosity between fans from rival clubs, he said.

"It would be like asking the Ku Klux Klan to march together with the Nation of Islam," Tarasov said. "But maybe it could work, if they could find a common enemy."

16.09.2005

Youth Against Youth

Politicians and the media have suddenly realized that there are young people in Russia. Not a week goes by without some announcement of a new endeavor that has been cooked up by the opposition or supporters of the current regime to attract and educate Russia's youth. We hear how the National Bolshevik activists are on trial after taking over the presidential administration reception office last December. Or about the pro-Kremlin group Nashi's extended summer camp on the shores of Lake Seliger. Or how local authorities threatened to break up another political summer camp, this time set up by the Youth Left Front in the Krasnodar region, by force if necessary. Or how the Red Youth Vangard blocked the street in front of the Prosecutor General's Office. Special OMON troops were called in. The media and the public reveled in the gory details of the ensuing melee, the injuries and broken bones.

The number of political events involving young people has increased noticeably, but not because the number of politically engaged young people has increased. The events have simply and unexpectedly attracted more attention. This in turn has encouraged the youth to become more active.

It was not that long ago when politicians were not particularly interested in young people or their problems. Russians between the ages of 18 and 28 do not vote for the most part. This generation, which grew up in a time when gerrymandering was the norm and lies were considered to be in good taste, does not see any point in participating in the imitation of democracy.

More often than not, young people are just busy doing their thing: studying, looking for work, improving their lives and staying as far away from politics as possible. The politicized minority frequently joins more radical movements that fall on the far right or the far left of the political spectrum. But the thing that they all have in common is that they do not go to the polls on election day.

Politicians prefer to cater to tried-and-true constituencies, people who were raised during the Soviet era and taught to vote in single-candidate elections that they knew were basically pointless. They are used to casting their ballots for goodness knows who. The older generations are the ones targeted by propaganda experts. They are the ones who guarantee a sufficient voter turnout, and many in their ranks appear to have few questions about the precise results of this routine procedure. Tallying up the votes is the job of the officials in the election commission, after all.Yet suddenly, the powers that be appear to have sensed that this once-reliable system is not so reliable after all. What has changed?

Earlier this year, the formerly submissive and uncomplaining old folks rebelled. They began blocking traffic and taking over government buildings when the government converted their benefits into cash payments.

Not only were state officials unable to calm them down, but Communist opposition leaders were unable to reason with the angry crowds, either.

At roughly the same time, a wave of regime change swept through a few of Russia's neighbors. These coups d'etat were wrongfully dubbed revolutions. Of course, all of these coups were associated in one way or another with disputed election results and young people played a deciding role.

However, it is not certain whether the young men and women who marched on government buildings in Ukraine or Kyrgyzstan actually voted in the elections they were refuting. You don't have to cast a ballot to understand that election results have been faked. And the public was firmly convinced that election officials had at the very least toyed with the results. This conviction was based on years of bitter experience. Only radical political change could make people change their minds about election results.

But what people think is one thing and how events unfold is another. Even if everyone is convinced that elections are being conducted dishonestly, this knowledge does not prevent average voters from peacefully accepting the results and recognizing the authorities who come to power as legitimate. A real crisis arises only when the ruling elite is itself divided.

Politicians' recent interest in Russia's youth is inversely related to their interest in elections. The opposition has split into two groups: those who are willing to go to the polls and have already made their peace with defeat, and those who are ready to take to the streets and address disputed issues there. But the liberal elite that is fed up with President Vladimir Putin is not about to go and take a blow from a police truncheon themselves. Only the radical youth - whether they are on the far left or right is unimportant - will be hitting the streets in protest. No matter who wins the battle for political power in Russia, they will not be sharing it with these young people anyway.

Those in the Kremlin understand this all perfectly well, and they formed Nashi according to this very principle. When a bunch of policemen beat up some kid protesting on the street, the regime has done something wrong. But when two gangs of young radicals brawl in the street, it's a minor riot. The authorities have no choice but to step in and reestablish order.

Nashi activists have been promised that if they do a good job "taking care" of other youth organizations like the National Bolshevik Party, they will be given the whole country as a reward for a dirty job well done, so to speak. But this is unlikely to ever happen. The grown-ups who run the country have no intention of giving anything to anyone. They have kids of their own, after all, who would never stoop to fighting in the street.

14.09.2005

Sharapova Will Be Russia's First No. 1

Maria Sharapova

CARSON, California - Maria Sharapova is on her way to becoming No. 1 in the world. She'll have to put the celebration on hold for another few days, though.

Sharapova withdrew from the JPMorgan Chase Open because of a strained chest muscle Friday, postponing her move from No. 2 into the top spot. The tournament's top seed was scheduled to play ninth-seeded Daniela Hantuchova of Slovakia in an evening quarterfinal match. A victory would have given the 18-year-old Russian enough points to overtake injured American Lindsay Davenport as No. 1.

Instead, Sharapova will become the first Russian to hold the top spot on Aug. 22. She will be the fifth-youngest at No. 1, and the 15th player in that coveted spot since the WTA Tour rankings began in 1975.

Sharapova is entered in next week's tournament at Toronto, but she said the chances of her playing are "not very big."

Whether she plays another match or not, she'll overtake Davenport in the rankings points. Davenport did not enter Toronto.

"The computer doesn't lie," said Sharapova, the 2004 Wimbledon champion. "You have to achieve something to get there. It's been an amazing two years and the achievement is amazing."

Sharapova received treatment on her injured right chest muscle Friday morning, but was in too much pain to practice and decided to withdraw.

"I didn't find any miracle cream that would work," she said, smiling. "I can do a lot of things with my arm, except serve and hit a forehand."

Sharapova had hinted Thursday that her status was doubtful. She said she played in pain during a 4-6, 6-4, 7-5 third-round win over Anna Chakvetadze of Russia.

She said the injury on her right side affected her ability to serve hard and pound forehands, the biggest strengths of her game.

The WTA Tour said Sharapova's injury occurred during practice Monday, although she said she originally strained the chest muscle in October at a tournament in Zurich, playing with heavier balls.

09.09.2005

Rights Activists Query Nashi's Motives

Organizers at a May 15 Nashi rally of 50,000 people in Moscow talked about victory in World War II and anti-fascism

The Moscow Center for Human Rights on Monday released a report on the growth of racial, ethnic and religious discrimination in the first half of 2005.

But human rights activists at a news conference called to discuss the report expressed as much concern over the self-professed anti-fascism of the pro-Kremlin Nashi youth movement as they did over ultranationalist groups.

The report, titled "Racism, Xenophobia, Ethnic Discrimination and Anti-Semitism in Russia," estimated that there are currently 50,000 teenage skinheads in the country. An additional 10,000 to 15,000 adults are active in radical nationalist organizations such as Russian National Unity, two of whose members were suspected in the bombing of a Grozny-Moscow train in June. Though no one was killed in that bombing, hate crimes claimed 10 lives and injured at least 200 people between January and June, according to the report.

MCHR member Semyon Charny said that among the general population, levels of xenophobia remained "high but stable," with 70 percent of those polled wanting official immigration support for ethnic Russians and limits on the immigration of other nationalities. Forty percent of those polled doubted that immigration would help either the economy or the demographic crisis, which has seen the country's population fall by 5 million since 1993.

Activists also called attention to a recent poll by the independent Levada Center indicating that 58 percent of ethnic Russians support the slogan "Russia for the Russians," a variation on the slogan under which the Nazi regime forced Jews to emigrate.

But the activists seemed particularly troubled by the rapid growth of Nashi, the well-funded pro-Kremlin youth movement that claims 150,000 members nationwide. Nashi, or Us, bills itself as "a democratic anti-fascist youth movement," but the activists said this was a serious misnomer.

"I'm convinced that Nashi is a fascist organization acting under the banner of anti-fascism," said Vladimir Ilyushenko, a political analyst. He said that he considered the group's role in supporting Kremlin interests comparable to that of the Hitler Youth.

"Look at whom they condemn as fascists: Irina Khakamada, Vladimir Ryzhkov; Gary Kasparov - the whole row of liberal politicians," he said.

In speeches and pamphlets, Nashi has attacked liberal politicians as agents of Western influence and has blamed them for a decline in Russia's international prestige. Nashi has also targeted oligarchs and bureaucrats.

Ilyushenko attributed the appearance of the movement to political inactivity by the cultural elite. "Our intelligentsia, our artists, our writers, are all in such a fearful state that they won't speak out against the threat of fascism themselves," he said. "Against that background, pseudo-intellectual fascist organizations like Nashi appear."

Alla Gerber, president of the Holocaust Foundation, said, "What is most frightening about Nashi is the implicit division of the population into who is 'us' and who is not. That can take a dangerous turn at any time."

Nashi's press secretary, Ivan Mostovich, denied that the movement had ever labeled particular politicians fascists. "When we say 'us,' we mean anyone who lives and works for the good of our country," he said.

05.09.2005

Off-Duty Police Beat LDPR Deputy

Ivan Musatov

A State Duma deputy was brutally beaten by off-duty police officers when he tried to stop them from beating a teenager near Paveletsky Station.

Ivan Musatov, 29, of the ultranationalist Liberal Democratic Party, said Tuesday that he was meeting with friends on Friday when he saw two men in plainclothes kicking and beating the teen.

"The guy was a really skinny teenager, so I rushed out of the car and ordered the men to stop beating him. At that moment, they switched from the boy to me," Musatov said by telephone from the Central Clinical Hospital, where he is being treated for several broken ribs, a broken nose and a concussion.

When two of Musatov's friends tried to intervene, 15 other men joined the melee, Musatov said. "They were all in civilian clothes, and they rushed to us from the nearby metro exit and kiosks," he said.

Musatov said he tried to hide in a flower shop and asked the saleswoman to call the police. An assailant who chased after Musatov said, "We are the police," and showed the saleswoman his identification, according to Musatov.

Musatov said he then produced his own Duma ID card, and the man then called it a fake, handcuffed him and resumed hitting him.

The brawl continued until Deputy City Prosecutor Sergei Lapin and a deputy Moscow police chief arrived. "If not for them, I would be dead by now," Musatov said.

Moscow police refused to comment about the incident Tuesday, directing inquiries to the City Prosecutor's Office, which has opened an investigation. Calls to the prosecutor's office press service went unanswered.

Vremya Novostei, citing the prosecutor's office, reported that two police sergeants, identified only as Mamyrin and Alexeyev, were arrested Monday and charged with abuse of power and hooliganism. A third policeman, Khasanov, is hospitalized with an eye injury and faces similar charges, the newspaper said.

All the attackers were off-duty police officers, it said.

Musatov's father, Mikhail, the deputy head of the Duma's Defense Committee, said he had written letters to Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov and Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev demanding a thorough investigation.

"It is inconceivable that police officers, even when off duty, can behave in such a manner," he told Vremya Novostei. "And what if they had been armed? Would they have started firing?"
Mikhail Musatov himself was beaten during a mugging by three unidentified assailants at his dacha in the Moscow region in May 1999.

In addition to him and his son, six deputies have been targets of beatings since 1994, Gazeta reported.

Nurgaliyev ordered police officers last week to be "polite" and "tactful" in their interactions with ordinary people. In a letter addressed to "policemen, sergeants and officers" and posted on the Interior Ministry's web site, Nurgaliyev said a "polite, benevolent" relationship with citizens was "the primary requirement" of a "moral and professional" image for police forces.

30.08.2005

Masked Men Attack NBP Activists

A baseball bat and gloves found by police near the Communist Party's office

Masked men wielding baseball bats and gas pistols, several of whom were wearing T-shirts bearing the emblem of the pro-Kremlin youth group Nashi, attacked a group of National Bolshevik Party activists Monday night, activists who witnessed the incident said Tuesday.

The attack, which witnesses said lasted only a few minutes, left three people hospitalized. Opposition youth activists and political leaders accused Nashi of carrying out a well-planned attack against the Kremlin's political opponents and warned of an escalating conflict. Nashi, or Us, which has condemned radical youth groups as "fascists" and proclaimed them to be its primary political foes, denied any connection to the attack.

At around 8 p.m. Monday, members of the NBP, Rodina's youth wing, the Union of Communist Youth and the leftist Red Youth Vanguard, or AKM, finished a planning meeting at the Communist Party's Moscow branch offices at 19 Avtozavodskaya Ulitsa in southern Moscow, people who attended said Tuesday.

A group of NBP activists were the first to leave the building, and they were immediately attacked by up to 30 masked men waiting for them on the street, witnesses said.

Andrei Tolstikov, one of the first NBP members out the door, said he saw the assailants come sprinting around the corner as soon as he stepped outside. Tolstikov said he was shot almost immediately in the chest with a rubber bullet and beaten with baseball bats.

"It was like they knew exactly when we were leaving the building," Tolstikov said by telephone Tuesday.

NBP leader Eduard Limonov warned that it could be the beginning of a "civil war."

At a conference of opposition politicians on Tuesday, Limonov accused Nashi members of being involved in the attack, which he characterized as "a challenge that leaves us no choice. These are the first skirmishes in a civil war, and we have to take part in it."

Limonov added that his followers would be ready to answer with gunfire.

"If they shoot at us, we'll shoot at them," he said. "No one wants it to come to that, but yesterday they were shooting."

At the same conference, Rodina leader Dmitry Rogozin denounced the attacks but was more cautious than Limonov.

"It is impossible to let yesterday's events pass without notice," Rogozin said. "What should we do? Should we also arm ourselves with clubs? If we go that far, we'll be trading elections for broken skulls."

Tolstikov said that the assailants continued beating him with bats and stomping on him after he fell to the ground, after which he lost consciousness for a few minutes. An ambulance arrived about 20 minutes later and took him to the emergency room to treat his head injuries and a broken rib, Tolstikov said.

Sergei Dovgal, one of the leaders of the Union of Communist Youth's Moscow branch, said he was coming downstairs from the fifth floor, where the meeting was held, when he heard shots and screams.

"I looked out the window and saw men in masks beating people on the ground with bats," Dovgal said by telephone Tuesday.

A vehicle with broken windows parked outside the Communist Party building

Also injured in the attack were NBP members Stanislav Dyakonov and Dmitry Yelizarov, the party said in a statement Tuesday. Dyakonov and Tolstikov were treated for concussions and released from the hospital Tuesday, while Yelizarov remained in the hospital with two broken hands and injuries from rubber bullets to the chest and legs, an NBP spokeswoman, who declined to give her name, said by telephone Tuesday. NTV television Tuesday evening showed Yelizarov in his hospital bed with bandages over both hands, bruises on his chest from the rubber bullets and a dark bruise above his left eye.

Witnesses said that the assailants tried to escape on a bus that had brought them to the meeting, but traffic police subsequently stopped the bus and took the assailants to the local police precinct for questioning.

NTV showed footage of the bus, which had a sign indicating it was a shuttle service between the Moscow region towns of Korolyov and Balashikha, after it was intercepted outside the Lefortovo Tunnel on the Third Ring Road. The footage showed police on the scene denying cameramen access to the bus, and the men inside were shown covering their faces with their jackets.

It was unclear Tuesday if anyone had been charged in connection with the incident, and city police directed all questions to the City Prosecutor's Office. Calls to the prosecutor's office went unanswered all day Tuesday.

Unidentified police sources quoted in the Russian media, however, gave conflicting accounts of the incident.

Shortly after the incident late Monday, Interfax cited unnamed law enforcement sources as saying the fight was between a group of skinheads and ethnic Azeris, and that a busload of skinheads had been stopped by traffic police in the Lefortovo Tunnel and taken to the police precinct for questioning.

In an interview with NTV aired Tuesday evening, Simonovsky District prosecutor Konstantin Kremnyov said only that investigators would "try to get an explanation and clarify who they are and why they attacked."

A city police source confirmed that a fight had broken out at the time and place indicated by witnesses, though he called the incident "a fight between two groups of 10 to 15 young people," RIA-Novosti reported Tuesday.

Around 20 young people were held for questioning for about three hours at the Danilovsky district police precinct Monday evening and were released after giving statements, the source said, RIA-Novosti reported.

Communist Party deputy leader Ivan Melnikov said he arrived at the Danilovsky precinct after members of the Union of Communist Youth called him and asked him to contact police and prosecutors.

"When I arrived, I went into the office of the precinct chief, who had been joined by the head of the city police's southern district branch and a representative from the City Prosecutor's Office," Melnikov said by telephone Tuesday evening.

"I asked if it was true that there were skinheads involved, and they categorically said 'no.'"

Melnikov said he then asked if they believed members of Nashi were involved, because it appeared to him to be a politically motivated attack.

"They didn't say 'yes,' and they didn't say 'no,'" Melnikov said. "There was just a pause." Melnikov said police did not allow him to see or speak with the men being questioned.

NBP member Pavel Zherebin, who said he was coming downstairs when his colleagues were attacked, said he and a group of other young opposition activists went to the Danilovsky precinct after the assailants had been detained.

Zherebin said that when the assailants were taken out of the precinct, opposition activists tried to take pictures of them.

"They tried to hide their faces with their coats, and when they pulled their coats up, we could see they were wearing T-shirts underneath with 'Nashi' written on the back in red letters and the Nashi logo," Zherebin said by telephone Tuesday.

Zherebin said the assailants were all well built and in their early 20s.

Limonov said there had been four previous attacks on NBP members this year, and called the latest incident "an escalation."

Nashi spokesman Ivan Mostovich dismissed the accusations that members of his group had been involved, saying that Nashi's activities were "based on the principle of nonviolence."

"Accusations that the Nashi movement beat up NBP and AKM members are completely baseless and are a bumbling attempt to hide internal squabbles," Mostovich said by telephone Tuesday.

Mostovich said that all of Nashi's commissars were currently at a summer camp near Lake Seliger, 160 kilometers northwest of Moscow, and that none of them had been implicated in anything illegal.

Mostovich called the financing of NBP and AKM "criminal" and "clandestine" and said the groups' relationship with their activists, "whom they have to pay to participate in rallies, leads the NBP and AKM leadership into such scandals."

Melnikov said Tuesday that Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov had sent telegrams to Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev, Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov, Justice Minister Yury Chaika and human rights ombudsman Vladimir Lukin, demanding a thorough investigation of the incident.

Alexander Tarasov, a sociologist specializing in extremist youth groups, said the assailants could have been soccer thugs hired, possibly by Nashi, to carry out an attack.

Such a well-timed attack could have been carried out only with sophisticated planning, including the tapping of phones, Tarasov said. He said he was almost certain that such an attack could not have involved a random skinhead group.

"You need to know exactly where and when and who is there," Tarasov said. "Which organizations have the ability to listen to phones? Only the FSB, and maybe the Interior Ministry. Skinheads don't have access to that kind of equipment."

Tarasov also said the assailants may have worn Nashi T-shirts as a form of political protection.

"If they were brought to the police station and police threatened to charge them on 10 different counts, they could just show their T-shirts and tell them to go to hell," Tarasov said. "They could just threaten to call Nashi leaders, and a small-time policeman doesn't need that kind of trouble."

State Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov, in Kazan late Monday, said that the attack "was planned in advance, prepared for and carried out in a corresponding manner," Interfax reported. He said it was necessary to find the people "who stand behind these youth, to bring to light the organizers of such a disgraceful act."

20.08.2005

Attacks Raise Specter of a Nationalist Threat

Nationalists have been linked to the bombing of a Grozny-Moscow train and the attempt on Anatoly Chubais' life, raising the specter that extremists on the fringes of the nationalist community have emerge as a security threat.

The Kremlin, which has warned of a possible nationalist uprising, is itself playing a key role in the radicalization of nationalists due to its real and perceived economic and diplomatic shortcomings, nationalist leaders and political analysts said.

"[President Vladimir] Putin came to power in 2000 with a tough stance on Chechens and the oligarchs. The nationalists believed that Russia had begun moving in what they considered the right direction, and they hoped to be summoned by the regime," said Alexei Makarkin, a political analyst at the Center for Political Technologies.

But their hopes of entering big politics have vanished into thin air, and their resulting disillusionment with Putin has been fueled by anger over the Kremlin's inability to squash insurgency in the North Caucasus, its heavy-handed monetization of state benefits, and its failure to keep a grip on Georgia and Ukraine, the former Soviet republics that have seen peaceful pro-Western revolutions over the past 19 months, said Makarkin and Stanislav Terekhov, the leader of the ultranationalist Officers' Union, a relatively large organization that predominantly consists of retired military personnel.

As a result, many ultranationalists now lump Putin together with his predecessors Boris Yeltsin and Mikhail Gorbachev, whom they see as traitors whose actions chipped away at Russia's power, both said.

Two suspected nationalists, Vladimir Vlasov, 49, and Mikhail Klevachyov, 47, were arrested in Moscow in late June on suspicion of bombing the Grozny-Moscow train on June 12. No one was killed in the blast, which derailed several cars.

Investigators said they found bomb components and reams of radical nationalist literature in the suspects' apartments. Media reports identified Vlasov and Klevachyov as members of Russian National Unity, a radical group that was banned in Moscow in 1999. Authorities have not confirmed the reports, and the group has denied them. Klevachyov fought alongside the Serbs in Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

Moskovsky Komsomolets reported last week that investigators also searched the apartment of Vladislav Kassin, a nationalist leader whose Patriotic Union of Russia's Volunteers is composed of Russians who fought with Serbs in the 1990s. The newspaper said Kassin was not detained even though extremist literature and a substance containing gunpowder were found during the search.

Kassin could not be reached for comment.

Investigators said the bomb that derailed the train was similar to the one used in the March roadside attack on Chubais, the architect of the country's controversial 1990s privatizations and the head of power monopoly Unified Energy Systems.

Three retired military officers, including at least one with ties to ultranationalist circles, have been arrested in the attack on Chubais. A search is under way for a fourth suspect, Boris Mironov, the son of a former leader of the largest ultranationalist group, the National Imperial Party of Russia.

While noting that there was little evidence connecting the suspects to the Chubais attack, ultranationalist leaders and analysts agreed that the nationalist community was growing more radicalized and some fringe groups were increasingly willing to resort to terrorism.

"I would not be surprised if political terrorism by the Russian nationalist movement were to escalate now, after the attack by Russian guerrillas," Boris Savostyanov, the leader of the National Imperial Party, said in a recent interview, referring to the Chubais attack.

"Ultranationalists may see this situation as a chance to establish themselves as a political force that will help eliminate what they see as the current weak regime and thus save Russia," Verkhovtsev said.

Verkhovtsev recalled the scandalous so-called Letter of 500, which was signed in January by ultranationalist activists and several State Duma deputies and urged the Prosecutor General's Office to investigate and close all Jewish organizations in Russia.

"Anti-Semitism is nothing new among Russian nationalists, who are in every stratum of Russian society. What is striking is that high-profile figures found the courage to openly sign the letter," he said. "It looks like they felt that this was a decisive moment in time."

Russian National Unity leader Alexander Barkashov said radicalism was growing among nationalists, but accused the authorities of unfairly portraying moderate nationalists as terrorists in an attempt to crack down on the movement.

"Authorities who scare people into obedience with terrorist threats feel a need to define a public enemy. People no longer react to Chechens, and that is why nationalists are being used instead," he said.

Once the most outspoken and arguably best-organized group, Russian National Unity was outlawed by a Moscow court in 1999. It was denied registration as a political organization by the Justice Ministry in 2000. Its members have been convicted of numerous violent attacks against dark-skinned migrants.

Terekhov, the leader of the Officers' Union, said it was next to impossible for nationalist groups to deal with activists who might be willing to resort to terrorism. "It is possible that there are terrorists among us, but we have no power over these people," he said. "Most nationalist organizations do not even have formal members."

01.08.2005

39 National Bolsheviks Go on Trial

Crammed into three defendants' cages, 39 members of the ultranationalist National Bolshevik Party went on trial Thursday on public disorder charges linked to their brief seizure of a presidential administration office in central Moscow in December.

The number of defendants in the closed trial appears to be a record in post-Soviet Russia.
A prosecutor told the court that the defendants had "destabilized the normal functioning of a state institution" when they stormed the public reception room of the presidential administration building during an anti-Kremlin demonstration on Dec. 14.

"They rudely violated the public order and, neglecting commonly accepted rules of conduct, engaged in a public disturbance that hindered officials' execution of duties," the unidentified prosecutor said, Interfax reported.

If convicted of public disorder, the defendants would face up to eight years in prison. Among the defendants are nine women and eight people who were under the age of 18 when the seizure took place, National Bolshevik leader and writer Eduard Limonov said by telephone.

Limonov said defense lawyers told him that three steel-rod cages had been set up inside the courtroom to accommodate the defendants, who have been held in custody since riot police officers arrested them in the seized office. He was barred from the hearing.

Breaking into the office was the more audacious of the movement's many escapades, which include throwing eggs and mayonnaise at senior officials and unfurling giant posters on buildings that call for President Vladimir Putin to resign.

The National Bolshevik Party, arguably the most outspoken movement in its criticism of the government, has faced a harsher crackdown by the authorities than any other opposition group. At total of 48 members are serving prison terms after being convicted on charges of vandalism and hooliganism linked to public protests, defense lawyer Vitaly Varivoda said.

Many political analysts and human rights activists have condemned the crackdown as a Kremlin attempt to silence an enthusiastic opposition group.

On Wednesday, the Moscow region court ordered the group to disband, siding with prosecutors who argued that the group was illegally masquerading as a political party and that it was extremist because many of its members had been arrested in recent years.

Limonov on Thursday accused the authorities of deliberately making sure that the trial of the 39 activists followed the court order to disband.

"Now it will be much easier to prosecute them as members of a banned organization," he said, stressing that "not a single drop of blood was spilled in any of our actions."

07.07.2005

Surkov: No Orange Revolution in Russia

The opposition should not entertain illusions that an Orange Revolution is possible in Russia, senior Kremlin official Vladislav Surkov said in a wide-ranging interview published in Germany's Der Spiegel magazine.

"There will undoubtedly be attempts to overthrow the government. But they will fail," said Surkov, deputy head of the Kremlin administration, in an interview published Monday. Surkov also said that he respected jailed oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky and that Russia should work harder to be "accepted" by the West.

Surkov ruled out an uprising in the wake of either parliamentary or presidential elections in 2007 and 2008 respectively, but he said that pro-democracy protests in Georgia and Ukraine had "made an impression" on Russian politicians.

"There will be no uprisings here," said Surkov, who oversees the Kremlin's relations with political parties, parliament and youth organizations. "We realize, of course, that these events have made an impression on many local politicians in Russia - and on various foreign nongovernmental organizations that would like to see the scenario repeated in Russia." Surkov warned about a possible future victory for leftist and nationalist parties, such as the Communists and Rodina. "With all due respect, I cannot imagine what would happen to the country if they came to power," he said.

Dmitry Orlov, head of the Agency for Political and Economic Communications, a think tank, said that Surkov's comments indicated that the Kremlin was in favor of a successor to President Vladimir Putin taking power in 2008, when Putin's second term ends.

The Der Speigel interview appeared after Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov appointed Vladimir Yakunin, a close associate of Putin's, to head the state-run Russian Railways, or RZD, last week. The appointment to lead the railroad monopoly could be interpreted as grooming Yakunin as a possible successor to Putin, Orlov said.

Surkov also said that radical youth organizations, including the National Bolshevik party, "represent a danger that cannot be underestimated."

By comparison, the pro-Kremlin Nashi, or Us, youth movement involves young people in the kind of politics that would not jeopardize the government, Surkov said.

Surkov has been widely credited with playing a leading role in organizing this pro-Kremlin youth group, as well as in the formation of the United Russia and Rodina parties.

The National Bolsheviks are known for holding high-profile demonstrations and stunts, such as seizing a Kremlin reception office, but in recent years have tended to steer clear of the racist rhetoric of radical nationalist and Neo-Nazi groups.

Yet, when asked about the National Bolsheviks, Surkov replied that "chauvinist, pro-fascist forces" could provoke "a wave of Islamic extremism," which would threaten Russia's territorial integrity.

Surkov, whose father is an ethnic Chechen, accused radical Islamic groups of trying to destabilize the North Caucasus in hopes of wresting the area from Russian control. He said these groups had been able to operate due to the failure of the authorities to enforce the law.

On Russia's relations with the West, Surkov said Russia should work to be accepted by the West, which he said "doesn't have to love us."

"In fact, we should ask ourselves more often why people are so suspicious of us. ... If we want to be accepted, we have to do something in return. And it's an art that we have yet to master," Surkov said.

Surkov said he did not push for the arrest and conviction of Khodorkovsky and said that he respected him for his work as a senior executive in Group Menatep, where Surkov also worked before becoming a Kremlin official.

"For personal reasons, I find it difficult to take a position on this case. I was on Khodorkovsky's payroll myself for 10 years. I'm biased because I respect him, which is one reason I prefer not to comment. Besides, the verdict is still under appeal."

04.07.2005

Chaos on Demand

While President Vladimir Putin steadily builds his vertical of power, his constituents seem to be experiencing a major shift in attitude away from a sense of stability and order toward feelings of anarchy and turmoil.

According to an opinion poll conducted last month by the Levada Center, 43 percent of Russians think the country is headed toward anarchy. In 2004, only 2 percent shared similar feelings. This dramatic shift has occurred in the course of a single year. It appears to have very little to do with ordinary Russians' reactions to social and economic factors, and a lot to do with an intentional strategy to foment fears of chaos.

Fear for the future is a familiar feeling for the majority of Russians. Back in the early 1990s, most families lived hand to mouth and could barely make ends meet. The transformation of the entire political, social and economic system was so dramatic that people had few expectations of stability.

Yet much has happened since. Russia now has a popular president, a monolithic and extremely predictable legislature and, more importantly, a government with cash to spend.

How can it be that in a country that is not engaged in a major military conflict and is experiencing robust economic growth and a budget surplus, almost half the population apparently feels that tomorrow will bring more chaos?

The same poll provided a partial answer to this riddle. It revealed that the number of Russians who thought Putin would bring more democracy to the country has decreased from 55 percent in 2004 to 12 percent in 2005. But the number of people who think that Russia is moving toward an authoritarian regime remains unchanged at 8 percent. Hence, Russians apparently no longer see the democracy-autocracy dilemma as the main driver of social and political debate.

From the "democratic" 1990s, many Russians took away a very negative impression of democracy as a system of governance. It did not pay the bills and left many in poverty. Current policymakers have apparently decided to transform democracy into an elegant slogan, fit for target audiences abroad.

Yet for domestic consumption, the architects of current policy have stressed in many recent policy proposals, speeches and interviews the imperative to unite behind the president and his party and prevent the country from falling apart. The president himself has frequently made the "collapse story" the starting point of major policy speeches and addresses. The United Russia faction in the State Duma echoes his words. The cleavage between order and anarchy has begun to dominate social discourse. And according to the Levada poll, issues of stability and order have grabbed the attention of 63 percent of Russians, compared with a mere 16 percent a year earlier.

However, the elimination of actual social disorder and instability is not the aim of the government's campaign. Instead, the state wants to instill a sense of instability and chaos in order to open new avenues for controlling society. The administration seems to see this as its only option for staying in power.

And so far, the strategy appears to be working very well. According to the poll, 43 percent of Russians already fear anarchy and chaos.

This strategy is as elegant as it is unsustainable. Decision-makers may think that they have discovered a magic wand to keep society in line, but in reality they have opened a Pandora's box.

The state is walking a fine line between a feeling of chaos and actual anarchy. By no means does the Kremlin want to see Russia collapse. On the contrary, it is doing everything it can to centralize and streamline the control mechanisms at all levels of power. However, the fear that Russia is headed toward chaos could be exploited by any political party or movement and used to gain widespread and destabilizing popularity.

The system of delegative democracy, which best characterizes the current political regime in Russia, only functions well when the state is able to capitalize on people's expectations and constantly provide tangible material benefits. In other words, people delegate a wide range of powers to the president with expectations of immediate and significant rewards.

When expectations exceed the capacity of the state, people withdraw their support for the president. Democracy might not pay the bills and put bread on the table, but neither does fear. Recent opinion polls, such as one by the Russian Academy of Sciences' Demoscope Polling Organization, indicate that Russians have already begun to feel the gap between their expectations and the actual performance of the state. Few are confident that the president and the government are capable of addressing daunting issues like terrorism, inflation and social protection. If this gap is growing despite a positive economic outlook, it is hard to imagine what would happen in a time of economic contraction.

And economic expectations are on the rise. By and large, people have better lives now than they did in the early and mid-1990s. People buy more food, purchase durable goods, take out consumer loans and sign up for credit cards. Consumer culture is spreading fast in Russia, and international financial institutions have become major players on the market. Experts concur that the coming year will see a rapid expansion of consumer finance services from Moscow and St. Petersburg into the regions. The same fate awaits the mortgage market.

People who have loans to pay off do not want to hear words like anarchy and chaos. If things do go south economically, and if the state offers people a nebulous sense of order instead of a paycheck, it is not hard to imagine how the public expression of economic discontent and panic could rapidly escalate out of the Kremlin's control.

Finally, by introducing the elements of fear and chaos, policymakers once again expand the agenda the country has to deal with. The state needs to implement important national projects, such as the structural reform of the economy, health care and education reform and the reform of social services. Its poor performance record thus far indicates that the capacity of the state to deal with pressing issues is very limited. Another agenda item might very well break the back of this government. And this would not bode well for stability.

03.07.2005

Radical Nationalists Suspected in Train Attack

Radical Russian nationalists could have carried out Sunday's bombing of a passenger train traveling from Grozny to Moscow, investigators said Tuesday.

"We consider this version on a par with a plot by Chechen terrorists," Yelena Rassokhina, a spokeswoman for the Moscow region prosecutor's office, which is in charge of the investigation, said by telephone Tuesday.

Citing the ongoing investigation, she refused to disclose what evidence had prompted investigators to put radical Russian nationalists on the list of prime suspects.

A homemade bomb went off at about 7:10 a.m. under the locomotive of the passenger train, which was 150 kilometers south of Moscow, derailing the locomotive and four passenger cars. No one was killed, but three injured passengers remained in Moscow hospitals as of Tuesday afternoon, Interfax reported.

An unnamed explosives expert from the investigation team told Interfax on Tuesday that the bomb had been assembled "utterly unprofessionally."

According to Russian media reports of investigators' findings, explosives equivalent to 3 kilograms of TNT were detonated by a toggle switch and six ordinary household electric batteries mounted on a piece of plywood. Investigators also found 50 meters of thin telephone cable connecting the bomb to the detonator.

"You get the feeling that one terrorist read a printout of 'The Terrorist Cookbook' from the Internet, and another one used these sketches to make a bomb," the explosives expert said, Interfax reported. He added, however, that the bomb could have been the work of a skilled explosives expert seeking to mislead investigators.

The experts said that the bomb bore similarities to the one used in March's ambush of Unified Energy Systems chief Anatoly Chubais. Three retired military officers connected to nationalist organizations were arrested in the attack and law enforcement agencies put three other people on wanted lists.

No group had claimed responsibility for the bombing as of Tuesday afternoon, and political analysts were divided as to whether in Chechen rebels or radical Russian nationalists had likely carried out the attack. Other theories, such as an attack by hooligans or aggrieved Chechen war veterans, were largely discounted.

"Planting explosives under a train can be done only with ideological motives," said Alexei Makarkin, an analyst with the Center for Political Technologies.

Alexander Verkhovsky, a researcher with the Moscow-based Sova think tank specializing in radical nationalist and neo-Nazi groups, said that neo-Nazis appeared to be most motivated for such an attack.

"They may feel that beating dark-skinned migrants on the streets is no longer an effective way to 'cleanse' Russian cities," he said. "Bombing a train coming from the Caucasus sends a much stronger signal and is much easier and safer to do."

He said that neo-Nazi groups probably did not fear arrest, due to the poor track record of law enforcement agencies in catching the perpetrators of such attacks.

"Whenever we are shown someone tried and prosecuted in terrorism cases, there is often a doubt that the right person is being punished," he said. "Neo-Nazis feel the same way and if a Chechen were to be tried in a bombing they carried out, it would suit them fine."

Russian neo-Nazis have been suspected of involvement in several smaller bomb attacks, including the planting of a hand grenade attached to an anti-Semitic poster near a highway outside Moscow in 2002. A woman who picked up the poster was badly wounded.

Alexander Savostyanov, leader of Russia's biggest radical nationalist group, the National Power Party of Russia, said by telephone Tuesday that nationalists would never bomb a train from Chechnya "because there were Russians among the passengers and crew."

He said, however, that he would not rule out that some fringe element or mentally disturbed individuals in Russian nationalist circles could have bombed the train.

Makarkin of the Center for Political Technologies said that the bombing fitted the pattern of previous attacks outside Chechnya claimed by Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev.

"If this attack had taken place anywhere in the North Caucasus, there would be not much fuss about it. But when it happened in the Moscow region, it was a shock for many here," he said.

The resumption of train services between Grozny and Moscow has been trumpeted by the Kremlin as a sign of peace returning to Chechnya, and so rebels could have seen the train as a legitimate target, Makarkin said.

The amateurish attack could have been due to the Chechen resistance movement running short of trained fighters, he said.

01.07.2005

A Woman's Right to Self-Defense

Prosecutors are asking the Moscow City Court to overturn a woman's murder conviction on the grounds that she acted in self-defense against a man who was trying to rape her.

In what is being seen as a landmark ruling on a woman's right to self-defense, the City Prosecutor's Office on Tuesday asked the court to overturn a verdict last Thursday by the Lyublinsky District Court.

Alexandra Ivannikova, 29, stabbed Sergei Bagdasaryan, 23, in the thigh with a knife after waving down his car for a ride in December 2003. The knife struck Bagdasaryan in an artery, and he was dead by the time police arrived at the scene.

The Lyublinsky court found Ivannikova guilty of murder and gave her a suspended sentence. District prosecutors had sought a three-year prison sentence.

In their appeal, city prosecutors said that Ivannikova's actions "did not constitute a crime," spokesman Sergei Marchenko said by telephone Wednesday. "The district prosecutor has expressed her opinion. We disagreed and said so." City prosecutors appeared to have taken note of public outcry over the conviction. Ivannikova's relatives and independent observers had expressed dismay at the original verdict of the district court, which found her guilty despite accepting that she had acted in self-defense to avoid being raped.

"This is a landmark case, not because it is a victory for justice but one for public opinion, which is still taken into account sometimes," said Yulia Latynina, who hosts a show on Ekho Moskvy radio.

The prosecutors' decision to seek to overturn the conviction came as a surprise to Ivannikova and her lawyer. "I sighed with relief when I got a suspended sentence last week, and I cannot say how surprised I was to learn the prosecutors are on my side," Ivannikova said by telephone. "I realize that this is not over yet and no one knows which decision the city court will take."

Ivannikova's lawyer, Alexei Parshin, said, "It is no secret that our judges are reluctant to acquit defendants, especially on murder charges."

No date for the city court hearing has been set.

Ivannikova got into Bagdasaryan's Lada car in southern Moscow on Dec. 8, 2003, after he agreed to take her home for 100 rubles, according to court documents. She became alarmed after she noticed that he had passed her house and turned instead into a dark side street near Donetskaya Ulitsa.

Bagdasaryan parked the car and locked the doors. Ivannikova testified that he then pulled his pants down and attempted to undress her, despite her protests. Ivannikova said she eventually managed to take a kitchen knife out of her purse and stab him in the leg.

Then she got out the car and ran away. She stopped a police car and told officers what she had done, but by the time they found Bagdasaryan he was already dead.

Parshin, Ivannikova's lawyer, insisted that his client had acted in self-defense, and that she had carried the knife for self-protection after being raped at the age of 16.

Nikolai Rylatko, a lawyer for Sergei Bagdasaryan's father, Andrei, said in remarks published Wednesday in Gazeta that he was preparing to appeal the Lyublinsky court sentence as too mild, and criticized prosecutors for making what he called a political decision.

A small crowd from the Movement Against Illegal Immigration and other radical nationalist groups rallied outside Lyublinsky court in Ivannikova's defense last week in an apparent attempt to whip up racial prejudice against Bagdasaryan, an ethnic Armenian.

But Parshin insisted that race was not a factor in the case, and that Ivannikova was not seeking the nationalists' support.

Dmitry Olshansky, a prominent defense lawyer, said that in the past those accused of killing in self-defense had been routinely sentenced to prison terms, but that this policy was slowly changing, with more leniency being shown to defendants.

The turning point was the adoption of an amendment to the Criminal Code late last year that rejected the concept of adequate response, he said.

"Earlier, if one was attacked by a fist, he was allowed by law to defend himself only with a fist and not with a knife or a gun," Olshansky said. "Now, someone defending himself and his property can use a gun against anyone trying to get into his apartment, regardless of whether the intruder is armed or not."

According to Interior Ministry statistics, about 8,000 rapes and attempted rapes were recorded last year. Olshansky said that although the number of rape cases that reached court was quite large, it were only the tip of the iceberg. "Policemen often try to prevent these cases from being recorded in order to keep good clear-up rates," he said.