DRAMATIZED REDISTRIBUTION OF PROPERTY

Those who call Moscow's West Biryulevo neighbourhood by the frightening word "ghetto" have never seen a real ghetto, perhaps fortunately for themselves. It is quite a normal sleeping area with flowers on the lawns, green alleys, the necessary shops and colourful playgrounds. Also, Biryulevo, as elsewhere in Moscow, has recently seen changes pleasing to the eye - stalls piled with packs of cigarettes, cheap beer and alcoholic cocktails gave way to stalls that sell flowers and newspapers. Although, of course, we must admit that, compared with other regions of Moscow, not everything is rosy here. The nearest metro station is about 15-20 minutes away by bus, the Moscow Ring Road is nearby, there are high-rise apartment blocks of the same type with nasty smelly entrances and "rubber" apartments, there is a large cemetery nearby, there are the concrete "pitchers" of a thermal power station and incinerator, and moreover, there is the Pokrovskaya fruit and vegetable base (now seems to be a former base), which locals regard as a shelter for illegal immigrants.

It is not that the ethnic composition of the area is shifted dramatically in favour of immigrants, but their presence is certainly very noticeable. And there is a good reason for that. At the nearest metro station Prazhskaya, a Turkish company is building a huge shopping mall, utilities workers and service personnel at the nearby heat station are mostly citizens of Central Asia, many local minibus drivers are from the North Caucasus, and the taxi drivers at the roundabout near the Biryulevo Tovarnaya train station are Azerbaijanis. And, of course, there are numerous employees of the notorious "Pokrovka" - the fruit and vegetable base.

It was the events in West Biryulevo on the evening of 13 October that were in the Russian media spotlight. Under Plan Volcano, the police struggled to prevent the so-called "people's gathering" from turning into a banal riot. The situation was brought under control only after the area was completely cordoned off by security forces and mass arrests began.

The "people's gathering", generously diluted by activists of nationalist movements, convened three days after the tragic death of the 25-year-old Muscovite Yegor Shcherbakov. According to witnesses, Shcherbakov and his girlfriend were on their way back home late at night when an unknown man started harassing her. The guy stood up for his girlfriend, but the criminal pulled a knife - Yegor died in the hands of his fiancee from several penetrating wounds. At that time it was already known that the criminal was "not Russian" and therefore, demands to "clear the entire area from immigrants" began to be heard. The alleged killer was captured by a very mobile (up to the change of the angle at the right moment) outdoor camera...

The suspect was identified pretty quickly, and the next day he was arrested. It turned out to be a native of Azerbaijan, 31-year-old Orxan Zeynalov. According to the operational video, at the time of his arrest Zeynalov did not behave aggressively, although law enforcement officials said he put up "resistance" during the arrest.

The detention, by the way, was exemplary: tall special force fighters, rapid transportation on two (!) helicopters, intense run with the detainee handcuffed and with his face down. On the helicopters, Zeynalov was laid on the floor, had a jacket put on his head and was zealously kicked with army boots. It all looked more like the capture of a dangerous terrorist or head of a major international drug cartel, chased by all the intelligence agencies of the world for at least 20 years, rather than the arrest of a suspect in a murder resulting from domestic violence.

Finally, after a repeat search on camera and another run with his face down, the unbelievable happened - Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev himself decided to meet Zeynalov. The minister ordered that the arrested man's head be raised in order to look him in the eyes, made a pause for effect and then told reporters that "the police once again proved their ability to perform any task that society sets them". However, for some reason he failed to mention that to this end, "society" had to destroy the shopping mall and give a whole district a hard time. Why did the interior minister need such a stage move? Who was to "fall for" this sketch? Or did Kolokoltsev remember his cinematic past, when, as chief of the 108th police station in Moscow, he appeared in a cameo role as an authorized operative in a detective movie called "On the corner near the Patriarch?".

Judging by comments on social networks, the exemplary nature of Zeynalov's detention outraged many people. Important clarification - it is the process of arrest, not the fact of it, because if Zeynalov really committed the crime, he deserves a fair punishment. But whether it was worth creating a colourful show is another matter ... One cannot but remember the exemplary delivery to court of the culprit of the recent fatal traffic accident at Podolsk. For some reason, the driver Grachya Arutyunyan, an Armenian citizen, was brought to the building where the Russian judiciary rules the destinies ..., in a flowered women's dressing gown and slippers on his bare feet. Meanwhile, the humiliating treatment of a suspect is a violation of national and international law.

"The rough treatment of Azerbaijani citizen Orxan Zeynalov by the law enforcement bodies of Russia, his definition as a criminal before a court decision and the exaggeration of the significance of the crime in the Russian media are assessed as a violation of the presumption of innocence," Foreign Ministry spokesman Elman Abdullayev said. This is stated in the note of protest that was presented by the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry to the Russian side.

So is it all about the nationality of those arrested? For example, if we look at all the police reports for 10 October and count the number of those killed in Moscow on that day, we would like to know how many of them the Moscow police detained with the same zeal as they demonstrated while capturing Zeynalov and how many of them the interior minister wished to see in person and in the presence of journalists?

Several days after the murder of Yegor Shcherbakov in East Biryulevo, the police found a knifed Uzbek citizen. On the afternoon of 16 October near a shopping centre in Izmaylovo District, the body of 27-year-old citizen of Azerbaijan, Ruslan Qaraxanli, was found. The man was first beaten with a blunt object and then killed with a sharp object. How are these crimes being investigated?

And finally, one more question. The day after the riots in Biryulevo, the police foiled a demonstration of nationalists called "Our response to Qurban Bayram" near the Prazhskaya metro station. It is known that the skinheads fixed a date through social networks, and according to some media reports, the organizers were the same people who organized the so-called "Russian Day of Wrath" in April of this year. According to Grani.ru, the average age of the protesters was 16 years, although some of the "activists" were 12 years old. Why don't the special force fighters also arrest on camera those who use children so openly and so brazenly for their own purposes and take them to Kolokoltsev?

However, this story has another main "hero" - the aforementioned Pokrovskaya base. And it is not entirely clear whether the murder Zeynalov is being charged with caused the closure of "Pokrovka", or vegetables and fruits themselves are so authoritative that they were able to attract the attention of the whole country to an incredibly tragic, but also, alas, not such a rare incident on the streets of the Russian capital? 

The Pokrovskaya fruit and vegetable base and the wholesale greens market operating at it covered 70 % of Moscow's demand for these products. In just one day the market sold vegetables worth 20-40m dollars or about 9bn dollars a year - revenues comparable to the state budget of some countries. There immediately appeared rumours which employees of the base themselves confirmed in a conversation with our R+ reporter - the hype around Pokrovka is actually a cover for banal redistribution of property. A new base has long been built outside Moscow and all talk about the closure of the Biryulevo "immigrant hangout" is no news - perhaps someone needs the place for development.

Russian media vied with each other in listing the names and nicknames of the true and fake owners of the base and described the bloody wars between competing criminal clans. The second most popular version was a conflict of different business interests related to the Moscow mayor's office, as well as, allegedly, that in the course of some investigation regarding the base, one intelligence agency came into conflict with another. However, Sobyanin himself denies the existence of any special reason to close the base. In an interview with Kommersant-Vlast, the Moscow mayor said that the owners of Pokrovskaya were ruined only by greed.

The investigative committee of the Russian Federation decided to suspend the work of the base in Biryulevo, but questions still remain. Why did the law enforcement authorities realize only after the murder of Shcherbakov that "gross violations of immigration, labour and administrative law had been committed at the base"? Why was the facility almost closed to outsiders and the press before? Why has it become clear only now that the base has no contract for the removal and disposal of food waste and has no grounds for collecting garbage? For many years, this "hotbed of illegal migrants", as it was called in the media, supplied vegetables, fruits and herbs to the Muscovites and maybe even to Russia's chief sanitary doctor Gennadiy Onishchenko, but he never asked where the tomatoes and parsley had been grown and who picked and packaged them?

Meanwhile, the scandal surrounding the Biryulevo base gave many politicians and political scientists a wonderful occasion to speak out. For example, the well-known member of the opposition and one of the creators of the "Russian march", Sobyanin's rival in the battle for the Moscow throne Aleksey Navalny, spoke about the need to introduce a visa regime with the countries of Central Asia and the South Caucasus. Through his blog, Navalny called for support for his petition, and if it gets 100,000 signatures, it will become a bill that the authorities will have to consider.

It is a strange coincidence. As you know, speaking at a press conference following the APEC summit a few days before the Biryulevo events, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that he did not support the idea of introducing a visa regime within the framework of the CIS, since this measure will push away the former republics of the Soviet Union from Russia. By the way, the voices of opponents of the Kremlin's Eurasian ideas began to be heard on the wave of Pokrovskaya - why should Russia get tied down with commitments to "migrant countries"?

It is also noteworthy that on 15 October, the State Duma of the Russian Federation passed a law making regional and municipal authorities responsible for conflicts on ethnic grounds. RIA Novosti reports that it will now be possible to dismiss officials if it is impossible to prevent major inter-ethnic conflicts on the territory entrusted to them. The bill was prepared in February 2013, but was adopted only now on the wave of the Biryulevo events. Few people are talking about it, but it seems that the new rule can be a flexible tool for controlling "people on the ground". After all, almost all population centres in Russia have immigrants and the Biryulevo scenario can be played out almost everywhere.

Thus, the consequences, relapses and new series of events around the Pokrovskaya base will echo for a long time both in the public and political life of Russia. Without exaggeration, we can say that the issue of immigration policy for this country lies in the area of national security. The statement that "the nationalism of the titular nation is the death of a multinational state" is known to everyone, but as it turned out, there are still many people who want to test it in real life.

The inability to control the flow of immigrants and xenophobic moods damage the international image of Russia and its foreign relations. What happened, unfortunately, also affected Azerbaijani-Russian relations. The anti-Azerbaijani hysteria was especially noticeable in a number of media publications, in comments on social networks and blogs. The Azerbaijani ambassador to Russia, Polad Bulbuloglu, noted in his special statement that raising street crime to the level of hysteria may have a boomerang effect especially in such a multi-ethnic and multi-religious country like Russia. "The whole process should only take place in the legal field," the diplomat said.

Meanwhile, at the highest level the Russian side always emphasizes that the friendly relations between Russia and Azerbaijan are strong enough. And, therefore, they should not be hostage to chauvinistic attacks and nationalist stereotypes. Russian President Vladimir Putin recently visited Baku and made it clear during the visit that Azerbaijan is a very close and strategically important partner of Russia. According to Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin, Russia would not want the happenings to be interpreted to the detriment of bilateral relations between Russia and Azerbaijan.

"We value our relations with Azerbaijan and will act prudently, according to the law and the sound logic of relations. Russia is a multi-ethnic state, which values the balance of interests between members of different ethnic groups," Karasin said.

One can only hope that the neo-fascist sentiment in Russia will be nipped in the bud and street crime will no longer be painted in ethnic motifs...

RUSSIAN SOCIAL AND POLITICAL FIGURES ON THE BIRYULEVO EVENTS

"It is not clear why one has to publicly kick someone who is already handcuffed, lying on the ground? It does not make sense. Videoing these scenes and showing them to the whole world is unwise behavior by the Interior Ministry."

 Vladimir Tor, one of the leaders of Russian nationalists and organizer of the Russian marches

"The anti-Azerbaijani hysteria launched in Russia is unacceptable, of course. This spectacle - bringing the detainee Zeynalov by helicopter to Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev for questioning - it's a shame. The minister participated in such a show in the case of a killer who was involved in a street fight."

Maksim Shevchenko, a Russian journalist and Channel One presenter

"It seems that the producer of Zeynalov's detention is Rodnyanskiy and the director is Fedor Bondarchuk. Anyway, our Bin Laden seems to have been caught. The country is saved."

 Ksenia Sobchak, a prominent TV host

"The video actually nullifies all the services of the police. For this kind of detention, the authorities must be accountable to the law. What we see is a reason for an inspection by the Investigative Committee and for criminal prosecution."

 Sergey Badamshin, lawyer

FACTS SPEAK

 About the staged nature of the Biryulevo events 

The Pokrovskaya fruit and vegetable base and the wholesale greens market operating at it covered 70 % of Moscow's demand for these products. In just one day the market sold vegetables worth 20-40m dollars or about 9bn dollars a year - revenues comparable to the state budget of some countries. There immediately appeared rumours which employees of the base themselves confirmed in a conversation with our R+ reporter - the hype around Pokrovka is actually a cover for banal redistribution of property. A new base has long been built outside Moscow and all talk about the closure of the Biryulevo "immigrant hangout" is no news - perhaps someone needs the place for development.

 Well-known Russian blogger Rovsan Asgarov identified one of the fascists in Biryulevo as an active member of the pro-government Nashi movement, Levon Arzumanyan, who is a student of Sociology Department of Moscow State University. "His active behaviour at the site allowed the official press and the liberal press that supports it to talk about the escalation of Russian fascism," various bloggers write.

 For some reason, only after the murder of Shcherbakov, did the law enforcement authorities "realize that gross violations of immigration, labour and administrative law were committed at the base".