Word: starovoitova
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...remarks and has repeatedly said all manifestations of racism "are absolutely impermissible," some wrongly took his statement to mean that nonwhite ethnic minorities were no longer welcome in Russia. Many people interpreted the remarks as "legitimizing what had been piling up in the mass psyche," says Olga Starovoitova of the Institute of Sociology in St. Petersburg. Belyayev now frets that Putin is not a tough enough leader, and the country is disintegrating under the influx of nonwhite immigrants. Unless the Kremlin formally recognizes the neo-Nazis and shares political power, he says, the movement will be forced "to launch...
When Alexei reads about a sensational contract killing--for example, the opposition Deputy Galina Starovoitova gunned down on the stairs of her apartment building last fall, or the St. Petersburg politician Mikhail Manevich hit five times at long range as his car sped down a busy street in August 1997, or the mafia leader felled by a sniper's single bullet as he left a steam bath--he has an eerie feeling. He wonders whether he trained the hit man. At times, he says, he imagines himself sitting next to the killer, checking his technique as he carries...
...Starovoitova's killing, on the staircase of her St. Petersburg apartment, appeared to be a professional piece of work. The killers tracked her from Moscow, and were not fooled by a last-minute change of her travel plans. Security sources say the hit bore the marks of the special services, Russia's blanket term for the security police and intelligence bodies. The sources speculate that the killers, reportedly a man and a woman, were either moonlighting security police or former operatives now working for the underworld...
...Starovoitova's friends and allies in the democratic movement vowed to unite their fragmented organizations in the wake of the killing. But they also traded accusations with their political enemies. One former Starovoitova ally, Anatoli Chubais, claimed "communists and bandits" were behind the killing. A prominent Starovoitova colleague alleged that Duma speaker Gennadi Seleznev, a communist, had ordered it. Some communists retorted that Starovoitova's allies had killed her to create a martyr. A leading communist Deputy accused businessman Boris Berezovsky of ordering the hit. Calmer heads suggested that the murder was connected to a dirty election campaign...
...Starovoitova's killers are in little danger of being brought to justice. None of the well-planned murders of prominent people--such as St. Petersburg's deputy mayor, who was shot down by snipers in 1997--has been solved. But the planned political violence is having an effect. Calls are growing for the government to invoke emergency powers. Prime Minister Yevgeni Primakov has rejected such demands, but he is under pressure to do something. What he can achieve with a system that is riddled with corruption, however, is open to question...