Moscow police

I know that much has been made about the police in Russia and in Moscow stopping tourists to view visas and passports. When the documents are shown, errors are found and a the policeman hopes for a bribe to let the tourist go.

I've just come back from 26 days around Russia and while in Moscow I had a very pleasant encounter with Russia's police. Sitting in the MacCafe near Kitty Gorad last Sunday a policeman and his colleague came and sat at the table next to mine. The officer asked where I came from "New Zealand". We spoke about rugby, Maori. I asked him what kind of police he was. He turned out to be special forces. I found out that he carried a gun and had killed two people in Chechnya. We chatted about a few other things before he got up to leave, shook my hand and said I was "A good man".

That was my only encounter with the police in Russia after visiting six cities. So for all those bad stories about police and bribes and hassling tourists there are nice ones as well.

Nice story, but...
You failed to mention whether this conversation took place in English or Russian. If it took place in English, then you were extraordinarily lucky in finding a Russian policeman who could speak English. If it took place in Russian, then honestly it's no big deal because people in this part of the world are typically friendly to foreigners who can speak Russian. At least that's been my experience.

On the whole, I still think Ukrainian cops are a million times better as they don't hassle tourists or shake them down for bribes and they can actually be friendly and helpful.

"he carried a gun and had killed two people in Chechnya"

apparently a really nice chap... German SS-men during WW II were sometimes also very nice when on leave from frontline duties...

#3, so those Russian special forces servicemen who fought Chechen terrorists captured and killed childrens in Beslan school (many died in action) or hundreds of hostages in the Moskow theatre, or those who did metro and passenger jets blasts - are SS men as per your oximoronic post? I offer you very interesting extreme trip to Russia- come here and say that to any man (not even to special force serviceman- too much honor for you, you can try say it to me). A tip- don't bother for return ticket.

I'd recommend you reading some uncensored sources about Chechen war, Beslan and Nord Ost tragedies. Even English Wikipedia would be enough, although you'd certainly find more background information in books and essays by Anna Politkovskaya or films by Andrei Nekrasov.

An overwhelming majority of victims of both Beslan and Nord-Ost were killed by Russian special forces. The lifes of hostages were worthless for the Russian authorities - they were simply not interested in rescuing them but in making the tragedy the greatest possible in order to vilify the Chechens before the Russian people. As your post shows, this tactics apparently succeeded

And the behaviour of Russian special forces in Chechnya justifies a comparison to SS. Just browse through webpages of int'l human rights organisations like Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch or read "Vtoraya Chechenskaya" by Politkovskaya.

The first guy was probably using the conversation as a cover for planting drugs on you. Are you black by any chance?

The second policeman who arrests you for possession of drugs must have been off with a hangover that day.

Lucky you!

#5, all of this is blatant lie or at least semitruth and a result of total brainwashing from your so-called "free media". Nobody depicts special forces as angels, but those bloody fanatics they are fighting are even much more worse than SS. Putting away all the stuff from Politkovskaya etc, try to answer for you own a pair of simple questions: a) is it good for you if someone take kids or civilians in the theatre as the hostages or blast the passenger jet or metro train, in order to gain the independence or whatever else? b) don't you think that the victims were the direct consequence from the terrorist attack, not vice versa (i.e. no attack - no victims)?

#6, yes, the mafia, dancing bears and all that stuff ;-)

<<all of this is blatant lie or at least semitruth and a result of total brainwashing from your so-called "free media">>

That’s what is said in the Russian media, which are under tight grip by Putin and his gov’t. In fact, if you bother with finding access to information which is not controlled by Putin, you would find that a lot of Russian atrocities against civil population in Chechnya are very well documented, down to dates, names and ranks of those responsible, photos, witness accounts etc. Politkovskaya excelled in this kind of investigative/documentative journalism and that’s most probably the reason she was murdered (by a macabre coincidence on Putin’s birthday). If you really look into her (and other) accounts, I don’t think you would dismiss them with the propaganda statement you’ve written above.
Despite extreme harassment and obstruction by the Russian and Kadyrov authorities (just imagine what could happen to a Chechen civilian complaining to Strasburg), some cases of Chechen claimants start to find the way to the European Court of Human Rights. Materials of those few cases do reveal really gruesome details, too. Sadly, Russia blocked a recent attempt at reforming the ECHR and in such a way it could effectively block many such proceedings.
Do you think that all media outside Putin’s control which report on those subjects are “brainwashed”? It would be a good result indeed….

<>

I don’t justify terrorists like Shamil Basayev and others of his kind. However, why did Russian special forces kill several of more moderate Chechen leaders like Dzohar Dudayev and lastly Aslan Maskhadov, who was the last trying seriously to reach a peace agreement? And why was Basayev tolerated for so many years? There are convincing accounts that at several occasions the Russian special forces simply looked the other way when they had an occasion to catch or kill him. He was very useful as an enemy, a “bloody fanatic even much worse than SS” to scare the Russians into supporting a strong leader who promised to “get the terrorists even in the loo”. To what extent were those Chechen terrorists created and nurtured by the Russian authorities or at least parts of them?

<<a) is it good for you if someone take kids or civilians in the theatre as the hostages or blast the passenger jet or metro train, in order to gain the independence or whatever else? b) don't you think that the victims were the direct consequence from the terrorist attack, not vice versa (i.e. no attack - no victims)? >>

Terrorism is terrorism and could never be justified, the answer is simple. But in any other country the leadership would negotiate with the terrorists, even realize some of their demands, and then pursue them after the hostages are safe. Any attempt to liberate the hostages by force would be a really surgical hit. Instead, the Russian special forces’ operation either in Beslan and Dubrovka consisted in killing the terrorists and hostages altogether. The authorities acted in the way like the fate of the hostages were totally unimportant for them.
Try to answer some other questions:
- why were the terrorists let to travel into Beslan through roads which would normally be covered by several army and police checkpoints, despite a great risk of terrorist attack in that area and in that particular time (schools’ opening)?
- why were some serious attempts to mediate hindered by the Russian special forces or authorities? Politkovskaya was seriously poisoned on the plane while travelling to Beslan to mediate. Maskhadov was refused safe passage and his mediation offer was declined. The only serious negotiator was Ruslan Aushev, whose efforts were much more difficult to hinder because of his high popularity as a distinguished officer and former President of North Ossetia.
- why did the Russian authorities refuse to identify the gas used in the attack by special forces on Dubrovka theater? Several hostages died a slow death while the doctors were unable to treat them.
- why are the families of Nord-Ost and Beslan victims trying to investigate the truth about the attacks (like “Mothers of Beslan” association, see http://www.materibeslana.com/rus/; http://www.pravdabeslana.ru/) harassed in the courts and deprived coverage by the mainstream Russian media?
Finally, in other cases there are proofs that the Russian “siloviki“ did not hesitate to orchestrate terrorist attacks themselves in order to blame them on Chechens and justify Putin’s grip on power. There is credible evidence that the 1999 attacks on residential blocks throughout Russia were perpetrated not by Chechens but by Russian special forces. You can find details i.a. in a film by Andrei Nekrasov, available on youtube.

I bothered writing such a long answer because I’ve looked on your website and seen you are a mountaineer, apparently not a crazy chauvinist blinded with hate, as your first post might have suggested – so perhaps you could be open to arguments which don’t reflect what is said in Russian TV.

I've just read Politkovskaya's book "Putin's Russia". Nowhere does she try to defend the terrorists in the Nord-Ost seige. However, its also clear that the special forces who stormed the theatre could have done things better. Like having medical practitioners on hand, with antidotes to their gas or, at the very least, disclosing to the doctors what the gas was that their patients had been exposed to. In the final reckoning, the gas killed more people than the terrorists did, but on the other hand without the gas, the terrorists may have killed more. But its hard to characterise the special forces operation as sinister - just inept.

What does ring true is Politkovskaya's story of unchecked police harassment of anyone with N Caucasus name or appearance since Nord-Ost. Restaurants in Mukachevo, Ukraine, are mostly run by circassians, who have fled to Ukraine to get away from Putin's out-of-control police, I discovered last week. The racism and collective punishment element of Russian law enforcement is sickening. We have a threat in the UK from Islmamic terrorism perpetrated largely by second generation immigrants from Pakistan. But nobody thinks this is solved by rounding up anyone with a dark face and beating them up.