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December 15, 2010
A Jittery Night in Moscow After Rumors of a Demonstration
By ELLEN BARRY
MOSCOW — Moscow was jittery on Wednesday after rumors spread that migrants from the Caucasus planned a street protest in response to the weekend’s ethnic attacks.
Hundreds of riot police officers sealed off a square near Kiev Station, the location of the rumored demonstration, breaking up knots of young people chanting Russian nationalist slogans and wrestling some into waiting vehicles. The police said they had detained 800 young people as a preventive measure.
Madina Nasimova, a slight 22-year-old woman from Tajikistan, looked apprehensive as she ducked into the subway alongside a stream of young Russian men in stocking caps and dark parkas. Ms. Nasimova said more fights were bound to break out underground.
“Tonight will not be fun,” she said. “This is only the beginning.”
Ethnic tension has spiked in this city since Saturday, when thousands of young people rioted outside Red Square, chanting “Russia for Russians, Moscow for Muscovites.” The mob, enraged over the killing of one of their ranks in a street brawl with Caucasian youths, attacked the police and passers-by whose dark complexions marked them as non-Russians.
Officials this week began to cast the clashes as part of a scheme to destabilize the state.
“Somebody has specially organized them,” Mikhail Fedotov, the head of Russia’s presidential council on human rights, told the Interfax news service. “There is somebody who very much needs to fan tension so that waves of violence fan through the country.”
It was unclear where the rumors about the demonstration came from, but they spread quickly. Teachers warned parents not to send their children to school alone, especially if they had dark hair and skin. Kiosks operated by migrants from the Caucasus or Central Asia were shuttered. Some embassies advised their citizens to stay off the streets.
The police began reinforcing the area around Kiev Station from the early afternoon, ringing it with personnel carriers and two armored combat vehicles. A shopping mall shut down at 6 p.m., and a bomb threat cleared out a nearby McDonald’s, as sappers roamed the premises with bomb-sniffing dogs. Riot police patrolled the tunnels in the city subway, and could be seen stopping any young men who looked like migrants from the Caucasus or Russian nationalists headed for Kiev Station. After the crowd dispersed, hundreds of young people waited in the icy night to see if there was a new location for the fight.
“They consider us nothing,” said one teenager, who refused to give his name, of migrants from the north Caucasus, though he added that had never encountered his detractors in person. “They call us Russian swine. They write it on their Web sites.”
A Jittery Night in Moscow After Rumors of a Demonstration
By ELLEN BARRY
MOSCOW — Moscow was jittery on Wednesday after rumors spread that migrants from the Caucasus planned a street protest in response to the weekend’s ethnic attacks.
Hundreds of riot police officers sealed off a square near Kiev Station, the location of the rumored demonstration, breaking up knots of young people chanting Russian nationalist slogans and wrestling some into waiting vehicles. The police said they had detained 800 young people as a preventive measure.
Madina Nasimova, a slight 22-year-old woman from Tajikistan, looked apprehensive as she ducked into the subway alongside a stream of young Russian men in stocking caps and dark parkas. Ms. Nasimova said more fights were bound to break out underground.
“Tonight will not be fun,” she said. “This is only the beginning.”
Ethnic tension has spiked in this city since Saturday, when thousands of young people rioted outside Red Square, chanting “Russia for Russians, Moscow for Muscovites.” The mob, enraged over the killing of one of their ranks in a street brawl with Caucasian youths, attacked the police and passers-by whose dark complexions marked them as non-Russians.
Officials this week began to cast the clashes as part of a scheme to destabilize the state.
“Somebody has specially organized them,” Mikhail Fedotov, the head of Russia’s presidential council on human rights, told the Interfax news service. “There is somebody who very much needs to fan tension so that waves of violence fan through the country.”
It was unclear where the rumors about the demonstration came from, but they spread quickly. Teachers warned parents not to send their children to school alone, especially if they had dark hair and skin. Kiosks operated by migrants from the Caucasus or Central Asia were shuttered. Some embassies advised their citizens to stay off the streets.
The police began reinforcing the area around Kiev Station from the early afternoon, ringing it with personnel carriers and two armored combat vehicles. A shopping mall shut down at 6 p.m., and a bomb threat cleared out a nearby McDonald’s, as sappers roamed the premises with bomb-sniffing dogs. Riot police patrolled the tunnels in the city subway, and could be seen stopping any young men who looked like migrants from the Caucasus or Russian nationalists headed for Kiev Station. After the crowd dispersed, hundreds of young people waited in the icy night to see if there was a new location for the fight.
“They consider us nothing,” said one teenager, who refused to give his name, of migrants from the north Caucasus, though he added that had never encountered his detractors in person. “They call us Russian swine. They write it on their Web sites.”