Another pogrom in Moscow passes off unnoticed

Yesterday, the mass media reported on a new pogrom in Moscow, this time in Moscow’s northwest, in the Tushino district. Local residents living on the Bolshaya Naberezhnaya Street relentlessly telephoned the police telling of a mass battle going on, in which about 100 people were taking part. It turned out later, however, that it had been not a pogrom at all, but “just an ordinary courtyard fight,” according to the Moscow police. There is a traditional Russian amusement, “kulachki” (the fists). Some 100 young men get together, and, oops, a “wall-to-wall battle” begins. Nothing extraordinary. Of course, police units were sent to the site. But by the time they came, the battle’s participants had already dispersed, police say. No one was detained. All clear. There were no reports of casualties, so it looks like no one was hurt at all. In reality, it was not the first episode of such kind in the district. There had already been such a “courtyard fight,” where hundreds of masked skinheads staged a hunt for the “Caucasians” on the Vilis Lacis Street. The pogrom lasted for about 2 hours. There were casualties. Police detained 10 pogrom makers. But by the next morning, there had been no officially registered victims, and those detained also disappeared from the local police station. “What happened can hardly be translated as a pogrom, rather it is sheer hooliganism. Policemen, having arrived at the site, just disperse the hooligans, asking them to behave themselves,” a police official told then a PRAVDA.Ru correspondent. Such “courtyard fights” are becoming a frequent occurrence in Moscow, aren’t they? They may result in casualties, but the suspects and detainees are usually absent. Something is going wrong with our society, if such dregs are being allowed to be surfaced, says Irina Khakamada, a Duma deputy heading the Union of Right Forces faction. Strange, power structures seem to have a blind eye for and even connive at such Nazi sorties.

Read the original in Russian: http://www.pravda.ru/main/2001/11/02/33356.html