A Russian Diary (45 page)

He went to call reinforcements, and thereby saved his own life. When a crowd of his colleagues arrived to inspect the vehicle, it was blown up. The button was pressed by someone who could see it and intended to kill as many militiamen as possible. After the explosion, Sergey Abramov, the Moscow-appointed Chechen prime minister, made some dark remarks about Basaev and Umarov, but did not himself go near the scene. A state of mourning was declared.

The Semenenko family, meanwhile, had been continuing to scour Chechnya for Alexey. Two days later they were visited at home and asked to go to Mozdok in neighboring North Ossetia to identify a body. All murder victims are taken to the forensic medical center there, as Chechnya does not have one of its own.

Tatyana Semenenko, Alexey's mother, still not suspecting any link with the bomb in Znamenskoye, found the victims of the explosion laid out in the mortuary refrigerators, except for one bag of remains that had been dumped on the floor in a puddle of water.

In this bag, which was being treated as if it contained the body of a terrorist, she found the remains of her son. She was able to identify him
only from a tattooed letter “L” on his arm. There was no face to speak of. The family subsequently buried this arm and the head. The militiaman who had first approached the vehicle, and seen Alexey's body while it was still in one piece, said it had been dressed in combat fatigues. His kidnappers had evidently dressed him this way before shoving him in the mined vehicle.

That is the end of the story, The Semenenkos have nowhere to turn. There was no public reaction. Nobody—not Kadyrov, Alkhanov, or Kozak— bothered to offer their condolences to the family. Nobody offered to compensate them for the death of their son. Nobody tried to pay them just to keep quiet. A criminal case in respect of the abduction of Alexey Semenenko was opened and closed, but they didn't even bother to open a criminal case in respect of his murder. Because he killed militiamen, Semenenko is officially classified as a terrorist. Admittedly, he was dead at the time of committing this crime.

There are really only two possibilities as to what happened. If those who kidnapped Alexey were indeed Kadyrov's troops, as everybody in the village believes, then the Kadyrov gunmen may themselves have staged this terrorist act, knowing that for as long as there is terrorism, paramilitaries are in work. If peace were to return, they would all be thrown straight in prison.

The second possibility is that the paramilitaries sold Alexey's body to the fighters, Basaev's or others. This is also plausible, because it has long been known that the dividing line between Kadyrov's troops and Basaev's is increasingly permeable, despite Kadyrov Junior's endless idiotic talk of how he dreams of shooting Basaev. Those preferred by Putin's regime are the most sly, cynical, and criminal elements in the land.

Who now in Chechnya is protesting about the saga of Alexey Semenenko? Nobody. His family are terrified of Kadyrov's paramilitaries because his two younger sisters saw the faces of the abductors. It is more prudent to forget their son than to risk making waves. These are the effects of Putin's war, on the way people think in Chechnya, and it is a way of thinking that is rapidly spreading to the rest of Russia. You find a similar blind panic gripping the families of those abducted throughout the
North Caucasus, in all those towns and villages where Chechnya-style mass “cleansings” have been taking place.

The more violent the rampaging of the security agencies, the higher Putin's approval rating, for the simple reason that very few people want to risk life and limb by opposing him.

Such is daily life in Russia today. Crimes, a lack of honest investigation, and even a lack of any attempt at it. The result is the endless replication of tragedies and terrorism.

For the first time in recent years, my newspaper refused to print the story about Alexey Semenenko.
Novaya Gazeta
wants to stay out of trouble, so it is best not to give Ramzan Kadyrov too much grief, since he is in favor with the president.

July 20

Today Putin received human rights campaigners and members of his Presidential Commission on Human Rights in the Kremlin. Svetlana Gannushkina was not allowed to speak, but handed Putin the letter from the hunger-striking Heroes. The matter was also raised directly by Alexander Auzan, another activist present. Putin was not pleased. He stated, “Everything has settled down there now. I have had a report.” Auzan was insistent, however, and repeated what he thought the president ought to be told on the subject. Ella Pamfilova, the chairwoman, became impatient and demanded that no further time be spent on the topic. The argument came to an end and Putin continued to regard the Heroes as part of the enemy opposition.

The discussion then moved on to ecological matters. The human rights campaigners missed their one opportunity to speak openly to him. Many of them are too afraid they might not be invited back.

According to Svyatoslav Zabelin, cochairman of the Socio-Ecological Alliance,

Putin raised three issues: first, how best to inform citizens about reforms being implemented; second, how the Social Chamber could be used as a channel to make public opinion more influential; third, how the voluntary sector in Russia could be developed with less reliance on Western resources.

On the second question, about the Social Chamber, the campaigners maintained a collective silence. On the third, Putin unexpectedly announced that he was prepared personally to oblige the government to find ways of empowering voluntary associations by channeling state and private sector resources. He seemed to me to be genuinely concerned that this support should not be seen as an attempt to bribe civil society and public associations. He was being very practical.

On the subject of ecology, I told Putin: “We need public ecological accountability, and public ecological audits. We have neither of these things at present. As a result, there are quite extraordinary things going on in the state sector. In 2002 the public sector had four ecological inspectors per district, but in 2005 there are four districts per inspector. How can we hope to avoid violation of ecological guidelines without public participation?

“We also find extraordinary liberties being taken with ecological audit. Here the problem is that businesses are required by law to take reasonable steps to ensure that industrial projects are discussed with the public, so that the interests of society and the overall interests of the state are properly considered. This is simply not happening. Most worryingly, the worst offenders are those companies in which the state has the largest financial stake.

“One well-known company involved with the pipeline from East Siberia to the Pacific is said to be behaving in a thoroughly devious manner. In order to comply with the requirement for a public ecological audit, it has set up a ‘public’ association of its own and registered it in Moscow. This body has made decisions on what should be done for people living on the coast, what should be done for people in Irkutsk, what should be done for the Buryats, and where it would be in their best interests for the pipeline to pass. When a project of this kind is being built in Russia, there are international repercussions. Their behavior is now common knowledge, there is a lot of fuss, and that can only be to our disadvantage. These companies, in which the state has a substantial presence, need to be told politely that this kind of conduct is just not acceptable.

“We have a system for assessing ecological costs. Eighty-five percent of the private companies we approached were prepared to give us, the public, access to their own ecological accounts: not a single state enterprise would do so.”

Putin replied, “I would like you to understand the logic of the situation in which state organizations find themselves in respect of ecological audit. You have just mentioned one of our most vital projects, comparable in importance with the Baikal-Amur Highway, which took decades to build. I hope this will not be such a mega-project, but its value to the state might eventually be much greater than the BAH itself, which is already struggling to cope with the demands on it. This pipeline gives us an outlet for our energy resources to the markets of the rapidly developing countries of the Asia-Pacific region, to the Chinese market where we are both buyer and seller, to South Asia, Japan, and so forth.

“Let me draw your attention to the fact that our country lost five major seaports in the West after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In effect, we became dependent on the countries through which our energy resources have to pass, and they abuse their geopolitical situation. We come up against this all the time. It is extremely important for Russia to have a direct outlet to other markets. When we were talking about a pipeline from East Siberia directly to Datsin, in China, along the southern end of Lake Baikal, we decided to diverge from that route after taking account of the opinions of ecological associations, ecologists, and inspectors. The cost went up by hundreds of millions of dollars. It was decided to skirt the northern shore of Lake Baikal and go farther to the east.

“These ecological audits should not be allowed to hold back the development of the country and the economy. I do not for a moment question what you have just said. No doubt we need to look very closely at the situation, but one of the ways of attacking us is invariably by raising ecological issues. When we started building a port adjacent to Finland, our partners in the neighboring countries (and I have this from reliable sources) put money into ecological associations purely in order to torpedo the project, because it would create competition for them in the Baltic. Our partners, including those from Finland, came and inspected ten times, but in the end were unable to find anything to object to. Now the ‘ecological problems’ have moved to the Danish Straits, and there is some objection to the vessels we are using. These are not even Russian vessels, they are leased from international companies. In the Turkish Straits, the Bosporus, there are ‘ecological problems’ too.

“Why do I mention this? I mention it because, of course, we need more contact and trust if we are to interact properly with national ecological associations working in the interests of our country, and not as agents whom our competitors can use to obstruct the development of our economy. This is precisely why I said that when this kind of ecological work is financed from abroad, it raises suspicions and ends up compromising all sorts of voluntary associations. That is what I am talking about. We need associations that help to resolve our own problems, so that major decisions can be taken optimally. For that, of course, we need them to have more contact with state organizations too.”

ZABELIN: “Certainly, the most important thing is establishing contact, and our national interests. As far as that great pipeline is concerned, the main thing is that it should be built. No reputable ecological association is saying it is not needed. We are talking about specific issues of routing and where the terminal should be located. The current choice, purely from the viewpoint of minimizing ecological damage, is the very worst option. There are plenty of alternatives, and I am prepared simply to hand over to you the analysis of those scientists in the Far East who say there are other options that are more beneficial economically, socially, and ecologically. We are partners in this, just as in respect of public ecological monitoring. As regards ecological audits, people just need to obey the law. We have an excellent law on ecological auditing, dating from 1995. It needs to be observed.”

PUTIN:“I would like to return to this in the future. I think it would be right to establish a more sensitive mechanism for interacting with our national ecological associations, because we cannot afford to make mistakes, and at the same time we cannot allow this issue to be used, as I have said, as a lever by our competitors. Just look at what is happening in the Caspian: Lukoil had only to erect an oil rig there to be told the ecology meant they couldn't. None of the other companies there have technologies as clean as ours. It is more expensive, but we have taken that on board. The same thing is going on now in the Baltic Sea.”

July 21

In Astrakhan, as throughout the country, the authorities are waging a war on the people for money and property. There the main weapon is arson. It is a war in which people die, looters sift the ruins, and ordinary people become homeless refugees.

The Ostroumovs are the last people not to have been burned out of their part of Maksakova Street, where an opulent house is being built in the prestigious old town. Of course, building sites are to be found now in all our cities; there are wealthy people around. The rules for how things should be regulated in such cases are that the local authorities allocate land to the developers and, if anybody is living on it, they are rehoused. After that the site is fenced off and building commences.

That is not quite how things are done in Astrakhan. A company called Astsyrprom obtained the rights to a development site on Maksakova Street. Unfortunately, it was covered with buildings where people were living in their recently privatized apartments. Astsyrprom brought in a subcontractor, a certain Nurstroy, both to build the new house and to move the current owners out. At first Nurstroy negotiated terms with some and
bought their houses, but then the approach suddenly changed. Nurstroy began offering people in exchange apartments that were manifestly unacceptable. The Ostroumovs were offered a one-room apartment for the five of them.

When the residents began to dig their heels in and make demands, the response was an ultimatum, followed by military-style action. The director of Nurstroy, Mr. Timofeyev, told Alexander Merzhuev straight to his face, “I'll burn you out.” Shortly afterward his house was indeed consumed by fire. The conclusion of the fire department's inspection team was arson using an accelerant but the evidence was deemed insufficient for a prosecution. The problem of the encumbrance of the left-hand side of Nurstroy's building plot had been resolved. The Ostroumovs occupy the right-hand part of the site.