Gosha Makarov is a teenager in Russia's second city of Saint Petersburg who shaves his head, wears heavy boots and abides by a simple motto -- "Russia for Russians."
The 16-year-old belongs to a skinhead gang in the city where racist attacks have increased during the past several years, prompting soul-searching in the former imperial capital that considers itself the country's liberal intellectual center.
In the latest attack, a 9-year-old girl from Tajikistan was stabbed to death in the center of the city last week as she walked home with her father and an 11-year-old cousin. The police have blamed the incident on skinheads.
"The blacks," as people from the former Soviet republics in the Caucasus and Central Asia are derisively called in Russia, are most often the target of skinheads like Makarov.
"It is ridiculous to believe that all people are brothers. Look, they act like Russia is their home," he spat out, pointing to a group of people from the Caucasus chatting outside a metro station.
In a chilling statistic, in a poll following the murder of the Tajik girl, 20 percent of respondents said they "understood" the attack.
"Naturally people said they were `shocked' and `outraged' by this crime, but they also were tolerant toward skinhead ideas," said Roman Mogilevsky, director of the Social Research Agency that conducted the poll.
"The situation is very serious, Saint Petersburgers like most Russians are not immune to racism and nationalism," Mogilevsky said.
"The society does not really put up a front against nationalist and racist ideas in Saint Petersburg, where such crimes are commonplace," he said.
Indeed last week's attack was only the latest such incident in the city.
In May, a group of German children of Turkish origin were attacked and molested by young Russians.
In March last year, a Sri Lankan student and an Indian national were beaten up in similar circumstances.
In September 2002, an Azerbaijani vendor was clubbed to death by skinheads who filmed the attack.
According to interior ministry figures, there are up to 20,000 skinheads in Russia today, who are particularly active in large cities, with some 5,000 in Moscow and 3,000 in Saint Petersburg.
Police say they face difficulties preventing crimes by the groups because of their decentralized nature.
"Saint Petersburg's skinheads don't have a centralized organization. Small groups spring up and dissolve very quickly," said Alexander, an official in the Saint Petersburg police department for fighting extremist groups.
"Most skinheads come from families with modest incomes. They are looking for scapegoats and think to carve themselves out a place under the sun in this way," said Alexander, who asked that his surname not be used.
"Police have a hard time preventing their actions because often enough they themselves do not know what they will do in five minutes," he said.
An exception, he said, was the Schultz-88 skinhead group that launched raids against ethnic Caucasians for three years and was well organized but fell apart with the arrest of its leader Dmitry Bobrov in 2002.
"Open your eyes, if the blacks kill you tomorrow, there will be no one to avenge you except the skins. They must know this," Makarov said.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS