Russia: At Least 25 People Killed in the 'Neva Express' Train Crash

Global Voices Online
Saturday, November 28, 2009

An express train traveling from Moscow to St. Petersburg derailed at 9:34 PM on Friday, Nov. 27, near the town of Bologoye, killing at least 25 people and injuring 87; as of 4 AM Saturday, 32 passengers are reported missing. The #166 train, known as the Neva Express, was carrying over 600 passengers in its 14 carriages; three rear carriages have been damaged due to the accident. A one-meter hole has allegedly been discovered next to the railway track, prompting speculation that this could have been a terrorist act.

On Aug. 13, 2007, the same Neva Express train was derailed due to an explosion; some 60 people were injured then. Coincidentally, in the past few days, there has been an increase in the Russian media coverage (RUS) of the trial of Maksharip Khidriev, one of the suspects charged in connection with the 2007 attack; an Ingushetia native, he is alleged to have links to Chechen rebels. (GV posts on the 2007 Neva Express train derailment are here and here.)

No witness reports of the tragedy seem to have appeared in the Russian blogosphere yet, but there are plenty of reactions still, and below is a small selection.

LJ user peresedov recalls the 2007 accident and the ongoing trial of one of the suspects, and posts this comment (RUS):

[...] Whether you want it or not, these two events [appear related].

I'd like to ask the experts: to which extent could these two events be interconnected, and is it really possible for Khidriev's associates (he has been proclaimed [Doku Umarov]'s person) to have prepared an attack like this in two days, and what the hell is going on here in general?

UPD. [LJ user] beri_llii links to a report claiming that the train explosion was carried out by yet another obscure nationalist group: http://headshotboy.livejournal.com/137255.html

Some bloggers chose to draw parallels between Friday's train accident, the trial of Maksharip Khidriev, and Kurban Bayram (Eid al-Adha, the Festival of Sacrifice), a three-day Muslim holiday, whose celebration began on Friday. LJ user warsh wrote this (RUS):

[...] I won't be surprised if this turns out to be a Kurban Bayram "gift" from the North Caucasus rebels (as it was with the attack on the Neva Express in 2007). I'm wishing them to join [the Chechen guerrilla leader Shamil Basayev, killed in 2006] as soon as possible.

And LJ user uliana wrote this (RUS):

All things considered, the newest Neva Express blast is someone's kurban. A consequence of the fact that those guilty of the first blast have been "appointed"...

LJ user aneta_spb mentions the 2007 attack and the trial, too, but points out (RUS) to other factors that might have caused the crash:

[...] The suspect in the previous catastrophe [case] has just admitted [his involvement] (and how many more they kept trying to implicate in this case!)

I can imagine what this night is going to be like for Novgorod's doctors... With roads like these... [...]

***

murys:

We were just driving from the countryside, gave a ride to a man who, as far as I understood, worked for the Ministry of Emergency Situations or a similar kind of place. He said that this segment of the railway near Bologoye is so rotten in general that they don't have to explode anything there, and this could've been a secondary explosion, too. [...]

aneta_spb:

Exactly - you don't even have to make an explosion. A couple weeks after [the 2007 Neva Express accident], we were on a train and spent some six hours waiting [not far from the site of Friday's crash], because there had been some accident in front of us. And prior to the rushed launch of the [Sapsan high speed train route], they were doing some urgent repairs, and it's likely that they haven't finished something or done something wrong. [...]

And here's a comment (RUS) on the rescue effort, posted anonymously in the ru_railway LJ community:

In this situation, I'm most upset about the fact that they've spent so much time bragging about the Emergency Situations Ministry's cool new rescue center in Moscow, about all the info that they've got showing on the little screens, and the fact that they are now capable of taking urgent decisions, but what's the use of all these decisions if the local rescue equipment is not in the working condition, and that's why they had to send some [all the way] from Novgorod. The accident took place at 9:34 PM, and the rescuers from Novgorod set out [to the site of the accident] only at 10:40 PM, and it takes two and half hours to ride along those roads, if you can call them roads at all, and that's the best case scenario. They've sent the planes out - but why don't they have anything locally?!

Russia: Victory Day

Global Voices Online
Sunday, May 11, 2008

Victory Day was as much of an event in the Russian blogosphere as it was in the streets of Moscow and other Russian cities on May 9.

LJ user kkk147 went for a morning bike ride and happened upon the departure of missiles, tanks and other heavy weaponry for the military parade on Red Square. He wrote (RUS):

Lots of fun to watch the parade when there are few people around and the vehicles are moving [so close you can touch them if you stretch out your hand] :)

More photos and video from kkk147 are here.

Aleksandr Plushev, Radio Echo of Moscow journalist, had a chance to see the same military vehicles on their way to the parade from his office on Novy Arbat. He posted photos and video on his blog, and wrote (RUS):

Finally, we've got something more interesting than the presidential motorcade driving by [below].

More parade photos from Plushev are on his Flickr page.

LJ user riverpilgrim (Mikhail Arkhipov) posted an impressive photo report from the parade's air show segment.

LJ user warsh (journalist Sergei Varshavchik) posted a photo tribute to surviving war veterans. In response to a reaader's comment, he wrote (RUS):

My grandfathers and grandmother are no longer alive, too. That's why I attend these veterans' reunions.

LJ user yashin (Ilya Yashin, leader of the youth wing of Grigory Yavlinsky's Yabloko Party) also posted veteran photos on his blog, taken by LJ user marie_automne. The first photo is of an elderly man holding a handmade poster that says that he returned from the front in 1944, disabled for life, and that his disability pension equals zero rubles, and that on May 9, 2007, there were 18,000 people like him - but only 6,000 remain this year. The last photo is of an SUV with the words "ON TO BERLIN!!!" scrawled on its back window. Yashin wrote (RUS):

On May 9, there were hundreds of veterans in the center of Moscow. They were being congratulated, children were giving them flowers, some were crying, others dancing.

And some remembered that in a few days people would take off their [St. George Ribbons] and forget about Victory Day till next year's May 9. [...]

LJ user drugoi, a top-ranking Russian blogger, posted parade and veterans photos, as well as a photo report from the Communists' May 9 rally. Below are a few comments (RUS) to the latter series:

4lynch:

Ha-ha... This [KPRF] is the only party opposed to the Kremlin in the [State Duma]. Only what's the difference between them? They've got so much in common. [...]

***

leo_nardo:

Amusing. A legalized alternative.

***

mcvanich:

Would be more use of them if they were cleaning streets and backyards.

***

shapelez:

Russia is an amazing country. Here, natural selection doesn't affect idiots - they continue to exist.

Stalin... I think these people hardly imagine what life was like in those conditions. [...]

LJ user net_livejournal posted more photos from the Communists march.

LJ user photolga was dismayed with the way some people in St. Petersburg were wearing their St. George Ribbons - "one of the most recognised and respected symbols of military valour in modern Russia," according to Wikipedia. She ended her photo report (RUS) on a reconciliatory note, however:

[...] Perhaps, it's not worth it to condemn anyone - these people have not seen the war, they don't know what this Ribbon really stands for. [...]

LJ user onepamop posted two photos from a May 9 trip to [Novgorod] region, during which unburied bodies of 150 WWII soldiers were found, along with 36 medals. He wrote (RUS):

[...] This is a lot, [discoveries like this are made] very rarely, if at all.

If you manage - drink to these guys, too. It's needed today.

[...]

[...] These people (of all kinds of different ethnic backgrounds) died at the very start of the war, spent 60 years lying unidentified in a swamp and were buried today by those who found them, in a way that befits the ones who die in a battle for their Motherland. [...]

Russia: Lenin's Mausoleum

Global Voices Online
Wednesday, November 15, 2006


Lenin's Tomb, Moscow, USSR, 1985 - by JoeBlogger

Three months before the collapse of the Soviet Union, the legendary "sound-manipulator" Sergei Kuryokhin proved quite convincingly (albeit facetiously) that Vladimir Lenin had been a mushroom and a radio wave.

Kuryokhin died on July 9, 1996, at the age of 42. His widow explained what had inspired him to expose "the leader of the world proletariat" the way he did (RUS, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Aug. 18, 2005):

[...] Sergei [Kuryokhin] once saw a program on [Sergei Yesenin]'s death. The author of the program was supporting his claim that the poet had been assassinated with some absolutely absurd things. They were showing photos from Yesenin's funeral and saying this: "Look where this man is looking, and this one is looking in the opposite direction, and this means that Yesenin was murdered..." Sergei watched the show and told me: "This way, you can prove just about anything." [...]

On Nov. 7, 2006, eighty-nine years since the 1917 Lenin/mushroom-led revolution, which resulted in the birth of the Soviet Union, LJ user valkorn posted links to the 32-minute video of Kuryokhin's famous prank (RUS, here and here), originally broadcast on May 17, 1991, on the Pyatoye Koleso ("The Fifth Wheel") TV show, in the city whose name would change from Leningrad to St. Petersburg on Sept. 6, 1991.

Like Leningrad, cities and streets have been renamed, some of the Soviet history got erased, but Lenin still lies in his Mausoleum in Moscow's Red Square, in relative obscurity most of the time. Recently, however, a little bit of a spotlight fell on him due to the renovations about to take place in his abode.

LJ user warsh writes (RUS):

Interesting fact #2088

[Radio] Ekho Moskvy reports that Lenin's Mausoleum is closing down for a month and a half for [restoration work]. Experts say that "scheduled biochemical work" would be carried out in order to preserve the leader's mummy. Thanks to the newest scientific achievements, Lenin's body, embalmed in 1924, can last many more years. The revolutionary leader only needs to have his suit changed. The state used to fund [preservation work] at the Mausoleum, but now the money comes from one of the scientific funds.

Reminds me of Knyshev: "on this day many years ago, the brain of the Secretary General of the CPSU's [Central Committee] refused to cooperate with the organs."

Since the state can no longer support Lenin, bloggers suggest ways to make the Mausoleum profitable:

stereobase: Lenin's Mausoleum is closing down for a month and a half and will be temporarily re-equipped to provide tire replacement services to drivers, due to the enormous workload that such services are currently suffering.

warsh: ...and due to the high death rates on the roads.

tchnr: They should make the Mausoleum self-reliant. [One way] is to borrow suits from popular boutiques and fashion designers, and charge them for advertisement. Change suits almost every day, using imagination. People will no doubt queue to see [Lenin] dressed like Elvis or in a [civil war military outfit]. There should be an entrance fee.

Or they should finally bury the corpse like human beings do.

warsh: Why don't you draw up a business plan. And toss it over the cogged [Kremlin] wall.

LJ user larinax is also wondering (RUS) what could be done with Lenin and his tomb:

Kuryokhin proved that Lenin was a mushroom and a radio wave (a masterpiece of a show with Sholokhov in 1991!).

Stas Namin's idea was to take Lenin's mummy around the world like that of Tutankhamun, before he is buried (real income for the Motherland! we'd earn billions).

Marat Guelman (if I'm not mistaken) served Lenin as an 80-kg cake (by Yuri Shabelnikov), which was devoured with pleasure with spoons by those who were invited for the act (in 2000, I guess, and Marat should correct me if I'm wrong).

It was Yeltsin who was supposed to bury him - at that time, no one would have made a sound. Though no one knew where [to bury him] - Volkovo cemetery didn't want him then and doesn't want him now. [...] "When a decade and a half ago they first began talking about burying [Lenin] at Literatorskie Mostki," writes Ogonyok, "the then head of the [cemetery] rebelled. 'Do you want him to keep getting exhumed all the time?" Mr. Mishchenko kept asking rhetorically. "Do you want us to begin every morning with searches for the body: where is it today?"

Bulgarians did away with their corpse (Dimitrov's Mausoleum) immediately and without referendums - leveled it, period. And Dimitrov's body was cremated and re-buried in his parents' grave.

After the "velvet revolution" in Czechoslovakia, the mausoleum was closed and the bodies (there was a bunch of them in there) were re-buried.

In Albania, they re-did the mausoleum into an international cultural center.

Russia, Ukraine: Victory Day

Global Voices Online
Tuesday, May 9, 2006


A WWII veteran in Kyiv, Ukraine - by Veronica Khokhlova

On May 9, former Soviet states marked the 61st anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany in WWII. Veterans and troops (as well as ultra-nationalists and Stalinists) marched in Moscow, Kyiv and other cities.

LJ user drugoi has posted photos of Moscow veterans and Russian ultra-nationalists. In the veterans' set, the self-made poster held by a woman in the first photo reads: "Glory to our fathers" (RUS).

One black-and-white photo of a veteran has been posted separately by drugoi and carries this note (RUS):

Last year, two people showed up from his 931st infantry regiment. This year, he hasn't found anyone. His grandson held a placard with the number of the battalion, regiment and division on it, and the infantryman stood leaning on his grandson's hand and cried like a child.

LJ user warsh has also posted a set of Moscow veteran photos titled "The Victors." In one photo, three elderly women (two of them with medals, one in WWII uniform) hold a poster, which reads (RUS): "May 9: How good that the dead cannot see what you have done to my country."

Marat Guelman, a well-known Moscow gallery owner and LJ user galerist, has been posting reproductions of works dealing with war by contemporary artists from the former Soviet Union: war (an LJ exhibition)-1 and war (an LJ exhibition)-2 (RUS).

LJ user maceda has written about her granfather (RUS):

May 9

My grandfather was drafted in 1940. They served three years then. The war began in 1941. bAfter four exhausting years of the [Great] Patriotic War and liberation of Europe, grandfather wanted to return. But he hadn't returned his debt to the motherland yet. He had to "finish" the two obligatory years of the service that he had been drafted into as a 17-year-old kid. Seven years total. In this time, his village had been burned down, the fellow villagers who survived had escaped, his parents and brothers perished. And grandfather was left with nothing but wounds, orders and medals.

He didn't like to recall the war. and was never telling anything. Neither to his children, nor to his grandchildren. He gave his orders and medals to his sons, and they carelessly lost them, exchanged, gave away. "These are trinkets," grandfather used to say, "and I'm not a German shepherd at a dog show." All that was left were ribbons, which could say a lot about wounds and awards only to those who knew. "For those who understand," grandfather would say as he was getting ready for a parade [...].

May 9 was always a Day of Remembrance to him. Definitely not a Day of Pride. And I can't even imagine what his face would look like if they tried to get him to take a georgievskaya lentochka (ribbon of St. George) in the street, if he saw these dirty and dusty striped bows on car antennas, or flirtingly used as belts on jeans, or tied to bags, or even to the ankles of tipsy gals who are incapable of telling the difference between a ribbon of St. George and a Beeline logo [...].

"For those who undestand..." The feeling of shame is the greatest when you are ashamed for someone else, not yourself. But on the other hand, I'm even glad that grandfather is no longer here to see it all.

Happy Victory Day, grandpa.

LJ user tima, in this year's Victory Day post, has linked to what he wrote last year (RUS):

Twelve glasses of vodka

Good Holiday to all of us.

I can't keep myself from writing this. I don't remember is I wrote this last year or before that. But it doesn't matter. This should be written every year.

I don't remember how to cry anymore, don't remember when I did it last time. Today, my mama will do it for me - she lost all her brothers and sisters during the war, all nine of them. The eldest brothers in the army - near Smolensk, near Oryol, near Kiev. Several of them died of illnesses and the lack of medical care. Some she lost to hunger and cold. Two elder sisters were hung in the center of their native town, and before that they had been raped by the Germans in front of everyone. One of them was lucky - she lost her mind and no longer understood what was going on.

My father turned out to be lucky compared to mama. Of his four brothers and sisters who lost only half - two of them. And his own father. Who went to war at the end of October and was killed almost right away near Rzhev. My only uncle was born an orphan, fatherless.

The total of 12. Out of 19, including grandmothers and grandfathers.

Happy Holiday to everyone.