2002 World Cup: Russian fans commit hara-kiri

It seems that football fans can organize mass pogroms in Moscow only, fans in Russian provincial towns mourn over failures of football squads alone. A 42-year-old citizen of Russian northern city of Severodvinsk (the Arkhangelsk region), an ardent football fan, attempted to commit a suicide following a Japanese system: he tried to commit hara-kiri with a kitchen knife. Then the man stabbed himself to the right side of the chest. In an hour the man in grave condition was delivered to a reanimation ward.

Doctors usually report about cases resembling criminal ones to the police. However, when police officers arrived in the hospital to see the patient, they understood at once that the case had nothing to do with crime, as conduct of the man was inadequate. A psychiatrist who was called to the police after the operation summed up: the man decided to commit a suicide because of the failure of the Japanese squad in the match with Turkey that was televised that day. So far the version is believed the main by the police (still, it was decided to institute criminal proceedings on the basis of driving to suicide).

The tragic event coincided with another, not less outrageous. The same day when the fan tried to commit hara-kiri, dozens of boxes emitting radiation were quite accidentally discovered in the town near shipyard Sevmashpredpriyatie, where nuclear submarines are built. Emergency services arrived to the site to discover that the boxes contained old fire alarm sensors, that used to be installed at defense establishments of Severodvinsk. Ionizing radiation sources are used in the sensors. 34 boxes with sensors were unpacked, the radiation background in the area made up 415 microroentgen per hour (it is 15 times more than normal level). But six boxes were unpacked, and radiation background about them proved to be up to 1,115 microroentgen! The police tries to establish owner of the boxes. The radiation sensors must have been on the territory of the enterprise since the Soviet era. It is supposed that boys wandering at the premises of the enterprise unpacked the boxes. Certainly, the radiation emitting boxes are not associated with football at all. However, it has never come to mind either in Russia’s Primorye region to associate hara-kiri with football.

Vitaly Bratkov PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Maria Gousseva

Read the original in Russian: http://www.pravda.ru/main/2002/06/21/42970.html