Mikhail Belyayev exclusively to Vestnik Kavkaza
Orkhan Zeinalov’s case is a unique case. A domestic conflict which led to a murder (the number of murders in Moscow in 2012 was 447 people) caused consequences similar to the murder of Grand Duke Franz Ferdinand. Instead of Sarajevo we have Biryulyovo, and today is not 1914, but almost 2014.
The resonance in Russian society intensified the work of the police, which in five days professionally found and arrested the suspect. Due to the efforts of journalists, Zeinalov soon turned into the “Biryulyovo murderer” from a suspect.
Two helicopter pilots brought the suspect directly to Minister of the Interior Kolokoltsev, who, in turn, did not disappoint the general public, finally showing his addiction to the theatrical arts, carefully hidden behind the mask of an impartial officer. The flow of mud and accusations between Slavs and Caucasians on the Internet, closing the Pokrovskiy market and speculation about who will benefit from this, the killing of an Uzbek and an Azerbaijani within a couple of days (investigated by the police with much less zeal – perhaps there was no decree " from above"), the protest from the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry because of the violation of the rights of its citizens detained - and we see how offence accumulates, in addition to the domestic, commercial, ethnic and even international implications. And if on the diplomatic level Baku and Moscow promptly settle everything as old friends, the blow to the international image of Russia as a modern constitutional state has already proved to be quite painful. The Western media did not miss the opportunity to comment critically on the processes occurring in the country, with special emphasis on the promotion of chauvinism in society and the media and the ill-treatment of suspects .
To see this, you can just turn on the German TV channel «VOX». The video with Zeynalov battered by riot police is accompanied by the phrase of a German correspondent: "In Germany, after showing this recording, a confession would not have been considered to be valid." In Berliner Zeitung, a German author in his article "The Russian refusal to acknowledge reality" analyzes the recent events in Moscow and rants about the causes of the "rampant chauvinism" in Russia, drawing parallels with contemporary Western Europe. "If it had happened in Berlin or Frankfurt, the police would have apologized and tried to find words of regret. But in Moscow the situation is different. Mayor Sobyanin did not even deign to appear in the place of anti-immigrant statements, and the favorite personality of the liberal-minded middle class in Moscow, the outspoken critic of the Kremlin Alexey Navalny, presented the events in Biryulyovo as a natural reaction to Putin's bureaucracy and launched an on-line petition for the imposition of visas for immigrants from post-Soviet Central Asia,“ the journalist reports. "Xenophobia in Russia is a public consensus, and the boundaries of “political correctness” are marked differently than in the West. If you're a public figure then you do not risk anything blaming by foreigners. The risk begins only when you're trying to protect them. Moscow has changed and will no longer be the same as before. This is a multi-ethnic city, but no one is bold enough to admit this fact,” the author says.
Die Welt, like most other German media, pays attention to the condescending attitude of Russian law enforcement agencies to the raging nationalists, on whom any serious sanctions were not applied. Junge Welt has decided not to be too polite in its statements, calling the rioters in Biryulyovo fascists.
Events in Biryulyovo have become a litmus test for Russian society. They not only have to verify that xenophobia is present in it – it is no secret that this is so, and this will continue as long as the Russian market is in need of cheap labor from neighboring countries consisting of strangers. To a much bigger extent, the story of the murder of Yegor Shcherbakov demonstrated the inability or irrational unwillingness of politicians and officials to adequately approach the solution of the national question who, ultimately , did not find any other way except for the initiation of the next "witch hunt" on migrant markets and vegetable depots. The subject of ethnicity is causing conflicts in a multinational country. "The short fuse of the rising Russian nationalist aggression burned down when a worker stabbed a Russian man with a knife in front of his girlfriend", Moscow German newspaper Moskauer Deutschen Zeitung reports. "There are many more such fuses in Russia. And in a society where conflicts constantly occur, a new spark cannot be expected to wait for a long time". Well, let’s wait. Fortunately, journalists of the local TV channels are not missing the opportunity to arrange for consumers another exciting show with national implications.
