ST. PETERSBURG, Russia - The ambush took three minutes, and Yunus Sultanov remembers only the way it began, with a crushing blow to his head from behind.
Sultanov's 11-year-old nephew, Alabir, witnessed the rest - from beneath a car he had scrambled under for refuge.
A group of teenagers clutching knives, chains and bats had encircled Sultanov's 8-year-old daughter, Khursheda. Her screams bounced off the walls of the snow-covered courtyard outside Sultanov's apartment.
When Sultanov regained consciousness, he staggered toward his daughter. She lay barely breathing, the snow around her stained a deep crimson. Her winter coat hid 11 stab wounds to her chest, stomach and arms. A neighbor carried the girl to Sultanov's apartment, where the family gathered around Khursheda as she died.
Sultanov, 35, a worker at a local market, doesn't know who attacked his daughter Feb. 9. But he knows why. His family is Tajik, and to bands of Russian skinheads and other extremist youths, that is reason enough. They consider Tajiks, Azerbaijanis, Jews, Chechens - and anyone dark-skinned - to be invaders of the Motherland.
Nearly two years after Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law against extremism, jackbooted skinheads and violent nationalist youth groups continue to attack Central Asian and Caucasian immigrants with frightening regularity.
The newcomers don't belong, and if they won't leave, they will be driven out, said Igor Agafonov, 24, a member of extremist groups since he was 16. With a wry smile, Agafonov declined to answer whether members of his group were involved in Khursheda's slaying, "because it's a crime."
But he said her death was justified. "We have to protect ourselves," he said.
Condemned as "cruelty reminiscent of the Middle Ages" by the Russian government, Khursheda's killing provided Russians a graphic reminder of just how little progress they have made in combating their country's struggle with racism and ethnic violence.
In April, skinheads in the central city of Yekaterinburg locked five Tajik laborers in an abandoned train car and burned four of them alive. One man survived.
In December, 16 college students who described themselves as skinheads to police allegedly stabbed to death an Azeri man in Moscow. The youths told police they routinely perform "sweeps" through the streets to rid the city of immigrants, the Russian news agency ITAR-Tass reported.
In St. Petersburg, skinheads armed with an ax and a knife appeared at a Tajik settlement Sept. 21 and killed a 6-year-old Tajik girl. A 5-year-old girl and an 18-month-old baby were seriously injured. Recent attacks in St. Petersburg by youths have targeted Africans and Vietnamese.
Russian human-rights groups say it is difficult to track trends in hate crimes because no statistics are kept. But in St. Petersburg, ethnic violence has been on the rise, they say, in part because extremist groups were emboldened by surprising gains made by nationalist parties during parliamentary elections in December.
Russian authorities condemn the acts of skinheads and extremist youths but they haven't found a way to stop them.
Putin's law, enacted in 2002, grants Russian authorities wide latitude in shutting down extremist organizations. However, the law has been criticized by human-rights organizations because it also has been used to clamp down on organizations such as Greenpeace and anti-fascist groups in southern Russia.
Many Russian police investigators downplay the problem, treating acts of violence by extremist youths on immigrant victims as routine street-fights or hooliganism so their jurisdictions aren't seen as hotbeds of ethnic violence.
"It's much easier for investigators, prosecutors and judges to treat these cases as hooliganism and not race crime," said Boris Pustyntsev, chairman of the St. Petersburg-based Citizens' Watch, an extremism watchdog group. "So known extremists convicted of hooliganism get away with suspended sentences or mere fines."
As a multi-ethnic state, Russia has struggled with prejudice and racism for much of its history. But the country's economic troubles through much of the 1990s have fueled a rise in extremism. Russians struggling to make ends meet bristled at Tajiks, Armenians, Azeris and other southern ethnic groups moving into Russia - and into what they considered their jobs and businesses.
Russia's Interior Ministry estimates the number of skinheads and extremist youths in Russia at 20,000, including 5,000 in the Moscow area and 5,000 in St. Petersburg.
Many come from working-class backgrounds, but Russian studies show that at least half come from middle-class or wealthy families. In many of those families, parents blame the influx of immigrants for their hardships during the transition from Soviet life to a market economy, Pustyntsev said. Their children grow up with that idea firmly implanted.
"Their lives have changed, and it wasn't easy, so when any new problem comes up they look for a scapegoat," said Mikhail Rodionov, an analyst at Citizens' Watch. "And they pass this mentality on to their children."
Agafonov has found his scapegoat. He said he considers anyone from the Caucasus region or Central Asia to be inferior and worth killing. A graduate of a university in the central Russian city of Izhevsk, Agafonov's boyish face, soft voice and slight build look out of place with his close-cropped hair, camouflage shirt and black combat boots.
But Agafonov said he is committed to the mantra of his organization, the Russia Freedom Party: The immigrant is the enemy.
"They hate us, and we can feel it," Agafonov said. "They want our jobs; they want our markets. So we have to stand against this or the Russian nation will die off in a few years."
The man who recruited Agafonov, Yuri Belayev, spends most of his time recruiting boys as young as 12 through the Internet and by passing out leaflets outside St. Petersburg subway stations. A portly, bearded man, Belayev beamed as he explained that he has dispatched teams of youths on "sorties" to attack immigrants.
Those missions included attacks on Azeri produce traders in St. Petersburg, he said. In the fall of 2002, a group of about 30 skinheads beat to death an Azeri melon trader from the city's markets. Belayev wouldn't say whether his group was involved in that attack or the one on Sultanov's daughter.
"I won't comment on that case, but our people have participated in such expeditions in the past," Belayev said.
Inside the apartment of his sister, Sultanov said he cannot imagine how he or any other Tajik in St. Petersburg poses a threat to ethnic Russians. Tajiks are not taking jobs away from Russians, he said, and they make a point of avoiding any conflict.
Like scores of other Tajik families, the Sultanovs moved to St. Petersburg to escape a grim life of poverty and joblessness in their native Tajikistan, the poorest of the former Soviet republics.
Sultanov worked at Sennoi, a bustling market packed with vendors hawking fish, sausage, shoes, clothing and other goods. Aware of the danger skinheads posed, Sultanov avoided eye contact with Russian toughs on the streets. He and his family, who have been in St. Petersburg for five months, rarely went to movies or took strolls in the park.
Khursheda was killed on Sultanov's birthday. He took Khursheda and his nephew, Alabir, to an ice skating rink before heading toward home at 9 p.m. Just as the three of them passed through the darkened archway leading to their courtyard, the teenagers attacked.
"We couldn't imagine a day without each other," Sultanov said of his daughter. "She loved this city. She loved going on the Metro, loved its zoo. It was all new to her."
Other relatives who gathered at Sultanov's sister's apartment said Khursheda had developed a strong bond with her father - scolding relatives who talked as he slept, massaging his feet when he came home tired from work.
In another room, Sultanov's wife, Sharifa, was too overcome to talk. She rocked back and forth on a bed, sobbing and kissing a newspaper picture of her daughter.
Sultanov's sister, Khalima Sultanova, said the family believes St. Petersburg police are working hard to find Khursheda's killers. Sultanov and his family won't stay to learn the outcome, though. They are returning to Tajikistan.
"We don't need anything here; we're fed up with this Russia," Khalima Sultanova said. "It appears Russia is just for Russians."
Chicago Tribune.
wil.
Sultanov's 11-year-old nephew, Alabir, witnessed the rest - from beneath a car he had scrambled under for refuge.
A group of teenagers clutching knives, chains and bats had encircled Sultanov's 8-year-old daughter, Khursheda. Her screams bounced off the walls of the snow-covered courtyard outside Sultanov's apartment.
When Sultanov regained consciousness, he staggered toward his daughter. She lay barely breathing, the snow around her stained a deep crimson. Her winter coat hid 11 stab wounds to her chest, stomach and arms. A neighbor carried the girl to Sultanov's apartment, where the family gathered around Khursheda as she died.
Sultanov, 35, a worker at a local market, doesn't know who attacked his daughter Feb. 9. But he knows why. His family is Tajik, and to bands of Russian skinheads and other extremist youths, that is reason enough. They consider Tajiks, Azerbaijanis, Jews, Chechens - and anyone dark-skinned - to be invaders of the Motherland.
Nearly two years after Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law against extremism, jackbooted skinheads and violent nationalist youth groups continue to attack Central Asian and Caucasian immigrants with frightening regularity.
The newcomers don't belong, and if they won't leave, they will be driven out, said Igor Agafonov, 24, a member of extremist groups since he was 16. With a wry smile, Agafonov declined to answer whether members of his group were involved in Khursheda's slaying, "because it's a crime."
But he said her death was justified. "We have to protect ourselves," he said.
Condemned as "cruelty reminiscent of the Middle Ages" by the Russian government, Khursheda's killing provided Russians a graphic reminder of just how little progress they have made in combating their country's struggle with racism and ethnic violence.
In April, skinheads in the central city of Yekaterinburg locked five Tajik laborers in an abandoned train car and burned four of them alive. One man survived.
In December, 16 college students who described themselves as skinheads to police allegedly stabbed to death an Azeri man in Moscow. The youths told police they routinely perform "sweeps" through the streets to rid the city of immigrants, the Russian news agency ITAR-Tass reported.
In St. Petersburg, skinheads armed with an ax and a knife appeared at a Tajik settlement Sept. 21 and killed a 6-year-old Tajik girl. A 5-year-old girl and an 18-month-old baby were seriously injured. Recent attacks in St. Petersburg by youths have targeted Africans and Vietnamese.
Russian human-rights groups say it is difficult to track trends in hate crimes because no statistics are kept. But in St. Petersburg, ethnic violence has been on the rise, they say, in part because extremist groups were emboldened by surprising gains made by nationalist parties during parliamentary elections in December.
Russian authorities condemn the acts of skinheads and extremist youths but they haven't found a way to stop them.
Putin's law, enacted in 2002, grants Russian authorities wide latitude in shutting down extremist organizations. However, the law has been criticized by human-rights organizations because it also has been used to clamp down on organizations such as Greenpeace and anti-fascist groups in southern Russia.
Many Russian police investigators downplay the problem, treating acts of violence by extremist youths on immigrant victims as routine street-fights or hooliganism so their jurisdictions aren't seen as hotbeds of ethnic violence.
"It's much easier for investigators, prosecutors and judges to treat these cases as hooliganism and not race crime," said Boris Pustyntsev, chairman of the St. Petersburg-based Citizens' Watch, an extremism watchdog group. "So known extremists convicted of hooliganism get away with suspended sentences or mere fines."
As a multi-ethnic state, Russia has struggled with prejudice and racism for much of its history. But the country's economic troubles through much of the 1990s have fueled a rise in extremism. Russians struggling to make ends meet bristled at Tajiks, Armenians, Azeris and other southern ethnic groups moving into Russia - and into what they considered their jobs and businesses.
Russia's Interior Ministry estimates the number of skinheads and extremist youths in Russia at 20,000, including 5,000 in the Moscow area and 5,000 in St. Petersburg.
Many come from working-class backgrounds, but Russian studies show that at least half come from middle-class or wealthy families. In many of those families, parents blame the influx of immigrants for their hardships during the transition from Soviet life to a market economy, Pustyntsev said. Their children grow up with that idea firmly implanted.
"Their lives have changed, and it wasn't easy, so when any new problem comes up they look for a scapegoat," said Mikhail Rodionov, an analyst at Citizens' Watch. "And they pass this mentality on to their children."
Agafonov has found his scapegoat. He said he considers anyone from the Caucasus region or Central Asia to be inferior and worth killing. A graduate of a university in the central Russian city of Izhevsk, Agafonov's boyish face, soft voice and slight build look out of place with his close-cropped hair, camouflage shirt and black combat boots.
But Agafonov said he is committed to the mantra of his organization, the Russia Freedom Party: The immigrant is the enemy.
"They hate us, and we can feel it," Agafonov said. "They want our jobs; they want our markets. So we have to stand against this or the Russian nation will die off in a few years."
The man who recruited Agafonov, Yuri Belayev, spends most of his time recruiting boys as young as 12 through the Internet and by passing out leaflets outside St. Petersburg subway stations. A portly, bearded man, Belayev beamed as he explained that he has dispatched teams of youths on "sorties" to attack immigrants.
Those missions included attacks on Azeri produce traders in St. Petersburg, he said. In the fall of 2002, a group of about 30 skinheads beat to death an Azeri melon trader from the city's markets. Belayev wouldn't say whether his group was involved in that attack or the one on Sultanov's daughter.
"I won't comment on that case, but our people have participated in such expeditions in the past," Belayev said.
Inside the apartment of his sister, Sultanov said he cannot imagine how he or any other Tajik in St. Petersburg poses a threat to ethnic Russians. Tajiks are not taking jobs away from Russians, he said, and they make a point of avoiding any conflict.
Like scores of other Tajik families, the Sultanovs moved to St. Petersburg to escape a grim life of poverty and joblessness in their native Tajikistan, the poorest of the former Soviet republics.
Sultanov worked at Sennoi, a bustling market packed with vendors hawking fish, sausage, shoes, clothing and other goods. Aware of the danger skinheads posed, Sultanov avoided eye contact with Russian toughs on the streets. He and his family, who have been in St. Petersburg for five months, rarely went to movies or took strolls in the park.
Khursheda was killed on Sultanov's birthday. He took Khursheda and his nephew, Alabir, to an ice skating rink before heading toward home at 9 p.m. Just as the three of them passed through the darkened archway leading to their courtyard, the teenagers attacked.
"We couldn't imagine a day without each other," Sultanov said of his daughter. "She loved this city. She loved going on the Metro, loved its zoo. It was all new to her."
Other relatives who gathered at Sultanov's sister's apartment said Khursheda had developed a strong bond with her father - scolding relatives who talked as he slept, massaging his feet when he came home tired from work.
In another room, Sultanov's wife, Sharifa, was too overcome to talk. She rocked back and forth on a bed, sobbing and kissing a newspaper picture of her daughter.
Sultanov's sister, Khalima Sultanova, said the family believes St. Petersburg police are working hard to find Khursheda's killers. Sultanov and his family won't stay to learn the outcome, though. They are returning to Tajikistan.
"We don't need anything here; we're fed up with this Russia," Khalima Sultanova said. "It appears Russia is just for Russians."
Chicago Tribune.
wil.
