December 13, 2010

Riots in Moscow: Football fans and nationalists against Caucasian diaspora (Part I)

Moscow, Manezh Square, Dec, 11. Photo be Ilya Varlamov
Last Saturday, 11 December 2010, a riot broke out in Russia’s capital. More than 5 000 people gathered at central Moscow’s Manezh Square, not far from the Kremlin and nearby Okhotny Ryad metro station. There were football fans and activists of nationalistic organizations who gathered to commemorate the death of Spartak (Moscow football club) football fan Egor Sviridov, who was killed a week ago.
Sviridov died in the drunken brawl, crushed out on December, 6, between Spartak football fans and some men born in Russia’s North Caucasus. Later on, five detained Caucasians were released with recognizance not to leave. The fact gave rise to the mass riot in the city this weekend.

Funeral fires
Another action was held in the second capital of Russia, St-Petersburg, on Saturday morning. Around 2 000 people, football fans and other youth pour out into the central streets in sympathy with football fans in Moscow. The action was unauthorized, however the police could hold back the crowd.
The scenario in Moscow was different. Police seemed not to be ready for such clashes, though the actions in memory of killed Egor Sviridov were announced before by Spartak fans.  In the morning several thousand of football fans came to the place where Sviridov was killed, then moved to Manezh Square. Soon the movement went out of control and came to clashes with OMON (Special Purpose Police Unit in Russia).
Some eyewitnesses blamed police to be rude and brutal while neutralizing the riot, from another point of view, one can clearly see in photo and video reports how OMON soldiers protected several Caucasians from infuriated crowd. After getting the reinforcements special units started attacking the crowd.
Moscow, Manezh Square, Dec, 11. Photo be Ilya Varlamov
According to official statistic, 32 people were injured in the riots. Later several people of  different nationalities (Russian, Caucasians, Central Asians) were injured and several killed in Moscow’s Underground. One more football fan, Sergey Kazakov, 19, was killed on December, 10, near Volzhskaya Underground station. Though, his death was overshadowed by the latest developments.
On Monday afternoon, December, 13 police closed Manezhnaya Square and a nearest shopping mall. The measures were prompted by reports received by police about new possible gathering of football fans and members of the North Caucasian diaspora, Interfax news agency reports. However, nothing abnormal happened in the center of Moscow that night.



Photo reports here
http://novayagazeta.livejournal.com/282234.html#cutid1           Vadim Sidorov, “Novaya Gazeta”
http://www.facebook.com/novgaz#!/album.php?aid=30256&id=132740460101983  Vadim Sidorov, “Novaya Gazeta”
http://zyalt.livejournal.com/330396.html                                        Ilya Varlamov (user zyalt)
http://yellow-reporter.livejournal.com/                                           Sergey Kazakov (user yellow_reporter)
http://aleshru.livejournal.com/                                                         Mitya Aleshkovsky (user alershru)
http://taek.livejournal.com/16390.html#cutid1                                LJ user TaEk
http://community.livejournal.com/live_report/795557.html#cutid1   LJ user martin_sqare

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