MAMA'S BOY
How often in Russia is a mother's love for her son unrequited?
Russian moms are
famously overindulgent, doting on their boys, doing their homework, spending
every last kopek to create a happy home. But, frequently all that attention back
fires. Sons grow up aloof, drinking and whoring instead of spending QT with
mama. The affection and sacri- fice generally is for naught.
It is the rare
Russian son who rec- iprocates the love and warmth, self- lessly giving
everything he can, even to the very end. Last October, according to Kriminalnaya
Khronika, one of these sterling examples of Russia's best was found shot in the
head next to the bullet riddled body of his mother in the apartment they shared.
But, what initially looked like a tragedy turned out to be a heart- warming tale
illuminating the Fifth Commandment. The 26-year-old son, who had worked for the
Moscow militsia for six years, was described by his acquaintances as exceedingly
normal. If anything about him was exceptional, it was that he didn't succumb to
the usual vices of a militsia officer.
This cop neither smoke nor drink. And,
unlike most of his coworkers, he didn't even fuck prostitutes in exchange for
allowing them right to work. Instead, he spent lots of time at home with his
dear old mama. He always treated her with a kindness and tenderness unusual in
Russian families.
So, when the brutal realities of life became too much for the
young mil- itsia officer to bear, the only thing that kept him from pulling the
trig- ger was his love for mama. According to the note investigators found not
far from chunks of his brain, he was tired of this life and couldn't take it any
more. But, he knew the news of his suicide would be the death of his mother.
In the end, he decided to perform euthanasia; that is, spare her from a long,
painful death suffering from grief. Before doing the deed, he unloaded a clip
on his mother, hitting her repeatedly in the head and shoulders. Having satified
his conscious that no one would now suffer unduly from his death, he turned the
gun on himself.
At least not everyone has forgotten family values.
NANNY TROUBLE
This one is straight out of the police textbooks.
It falls under the standard
young-man-kills-former- nanny-of-nine-years-because-she- wanted-to-watch-Mexican-
soap- opera type murder.
According to Moskovsky Komsomolets, Latvian Gypsy
Andrei and his younger sister spent most of their early years separated from
their parents. While their parents made endless runs buying Latvian goods and
selling them in Moscow's markets, the two children lived in Moscow with retired
kindergarten teacher. There, Andrei lived in rela- tive comfort until the age of 15,
when his parents recruited him into the family business.
However, Andrei made sure
to visit his nanny every time he was in Moscow. She would have rather done without
the visits, as Andrei was quite rude to her and had a habit of smacking around
his girlfriend in the nanny's apartment. In particular, the nanny complained
to neighbors that he hit his pregnant girlfriend frequently before she gave
birth in 1999.
Last April, the two lovebirds came by and again started
disrupting the 73-year-old pensioner's life. She asked them never to come back.
And, indeed, after that days events, they heeded her words.
In the early
evening, Andrei sent his lover out to by a pack of smokes. When she returned
twenty minutes later, the former nanny lay dead in a pool of blood. The
coroner's report claimed she had been stabbed at least 32 times. Upon seeing the
bloody corpse, his girlfriend screamed.
Andrei responded by beating the shit out of her until she shut up. He then
explained how he wanted to watch the news and his nanny insisted on watching
"Celeste, only Celeste." Obviously, she had it coming.
The couple then locked
the door and fled. None of the neighbors had heard anything, and the partly
decayed body was only found several days later when a niece of the victim
stopped by to visit. Somehow, Andrei made it many months before Interpol picked
up the 18-year-old up last week in Sweden, where they reportedly do not televise
Mexican soaps.
SEASON HIGH
When Moscow's biggest mass murder of the year
happened in a seventh floor
apartment in the south of the city, the neighbors were outraged. One of the
deceased had the gall to run into the hall before he got shot up, and the
militsia roped off the whole area. The neighbors couldn't get into their own
apart- ments.
What was supposed to be a pretty straight
forward hit on Alexsei
Strabykin earlier this week got com- plicated by the presence of house- guests.
According to Moskovsky Komsomolets, the hit men arrived around nine in the
morning and cut the phone line. Then, they rang the doorbell claiming to be
electricians dispatched to fix the problem.
When the door opened, the hit men
got to work. Inside, they found Strabykin, along with his girlfriend and two
guests who had spent the night. Rather than risk any witness- es or shoot the
wrong guy, the thugs started working their way down the corridor, killing
everyone present.
Only Strabykin escaped the first round of shooting. He ran out
into the hall, screaming, "Don't kill me, guys, I'll give it all back!"
Apparently, it was too late for such negotiations, and they shot him down, too.
Then, they took off.
Strabykin was the boss of a real estate company Alektro
Groub who, judging by his final words, must have borrowed money from the wrong
folks.
As for the neighbors, they spent the morning complaining to a Moskovsky
Komsomolets reporter, "What about us? Are we supposed to spend all day sitting
on the street?" It's tough not to sympathize with the innocent victims of such
crimes.
BAD TASTE
The hit on architect Viktor
Zhuravlev sent chills down generations
of Russian architects. The only
apparent motive was that someone
didn't like the dacha they commissioned
from him. If this murder sets
a precedent of killing lousy architects,
Russian architects will soon
become extinct.
Zhuravlev was the chief architect
in the Moscow suburb Sergeiv
Posad. Two weeks ago, a hit man
shot him in his podyezd around 6 in
the evening. Zhuravlev had been
coming home from work.
The potential suspect pool is quite
large, as Zhuravlev has built innu-
merable ugly dachas for new
Russians.
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