There is only one way to dispel suspicions that her murder was planned: to establish the circumstances of the crime, to arrest those responsible, and make them answer in court for it. If Russian society does not demand the maximum penalty for those who were involved intellectually and materially in this crime, it can only be said that Russia is in serious danger.
Having murdered Anna Politkovskaya, they have not only deprived a woman of her life, but have sent a message to the whole country, threatening anybody who is thinking of doing what she did. Politkovskaya has paid with her life, but Russian society will pay with its freedom if it does not now manage to react courageously.
More than any other Russian reporter, she illuminated the plight of Chechen civilians driven from their homes, tortured and at times summarily executed by Russian troops and pro-Moscow Chechen forces.
Along the way, she received threats from all sides of the conflict – Chechen fighters as well as Russian troops. She fled to Vienna in 2001 after receiving threats from a Russian officer angered when she wrote about his involvement in war crimes.
In 2004, while she was on a flight to Beslan to cover the school hostage crisis there, she became seriously ill after drinking tea on the plane. She and many colleagues believed she was deliberately poisoned.
Igor Yakovenko, General Secretary of the Russian Union of Journalists, called the slaying “a kind of new and very black page in Russian history.” “For the first time in several years, Russian journalism has been hit in its very heart,” he told Interfax. “A tragedy has happened in our profession that is impossible to make up for because there is and will be nothing like Anna Politkovskaya.”
Russian institutions should make investigation of the unjustified murder of Anna Politkovskaya an absolute priority if they want to demonstrate to the international community, which demands elucidation of the circumstances of the crime, that Russian justice is capable of rising to the level of the democracy which they claim to defend. It needs to be established who shot this defender of human rights and an independent press and why, at the entrance to her home, when she had warned of threats to her life and was preparing to publish an article about torture in Chechnya.
Anna Politkovskaya has been murdered. Does this mean that the famous journalist, whose pessimism many of our experts considered exaggerated, bearing in mind the tempo of Russia’s economic growth, was right? It would seem that very important strategic partner, Vladimir Putin, has not succeeded in returning this “great country” to a normal life. Yet again we find that we have taken what we would like to believe for reality.
The fear now is that Russia’s already fragile independent press could crumble without its talisman …
For years Politkovskaya, a mother of two, was a hero to the liberal opposition …
But her main enemy was Putin, the man who gained political capital on the back of the Russian Army’s second bloody charge into Grozny in late 1999, and the man she said she hated “for his cynicism, for his racism, his lies, for the massacre of the innocents that went on throughout his first term as President” …
Yesterday brought an apparent paradox: while Politkovskaya’s death served a bleak warning to the independent press that the price of dissent is death, newspapers were their angriest for many months. Predictably, opposition dailies such as Kommersant and Novaya gazeta were filled with fury about the murder. But the pro-Kremlin press was also in high dudgeon. Rossiyskaya gazeta, the official newspaper of the Russian government, praised Politkovskaya for “standing against war, corruption, demagoguery and social inequality.” Even the usually loyal mass-market tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda was happy to publish a conspiracy theory suggesting Politkovskaya was killed as part of a complex plan to lever Putin into the presidency for an anti-constitutional third term.
Anna had more courage than most of us can begin to imagine, and her death is a reminder of the violent state she exposed so vividly in Putin’s Russia.
Anna Politkovskaya was the conscience of Russia. In a country which increasingly is being enslaved by fear, self-censorship and cynicism, this journalist succeeded in retaining her civic courage. At a time when most of the Russian media prefer to remain silent, Novaya gazeta became, thanks to her, one of the last bastions of free speech. The principled position which she maintained to the last raises her to the ranks of such Soviet dissidents as Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Andrey Sakharov.
The impunity which the murderers of journalists enjoy, the protection which is extended to the tormentors of the Chechens, have as their aim to train the Russian people once again in the ways of silence and fear.
Anna Politkovskaya wanted to compel to think those people whose wish to know was greater than their fear. It is time to ask European politicians whose messages they are prepared to listen to: those of Vladimir Putin or of Anna Politkovskaya.
Her murder has made her a symbol of what Russia has become, but it was only the latest in a series of them. She was 48; the freedoms that she used to make her post-Soviet career, to write openly and critically about the deeds of a new Russian power, are much younger. And, it would seem, equally fragile …
Ms Politkovskaya’s funeral, in fact, displayed the deep divisions in today’s Russia between those in power and those not. The mourners included her family and friends, colleagues and politicians, though almost all from outside the center of power, and several foreign diplomats, including Ambassador William J. Burns of the United States, whose governments have denounced her killing far more forcefully than Mr Putin or any other senior government leaders here.
Her caustic position was something the Kremlin never liked, but she was one of the most respected journalists in the country, who moreover was given innumerable foreign awards.
Oleg Panfilov, Director of the Centre for Extreme Journalism: “Every time people asked if there was an honest journalist in Russia, the first name to come to mind was almost invariably that of Politkovskaya.”
Politkovskaya, 48, was a constant critic of the Kremlin and her murder will throw suspicion on the security services and the pro-Moscow regime in Chechnya …
In an anthology Another Sky, due to be published next year by English PEN, a writers’ group campaigning against political oppression, Politkovskaya chillingly predicted yesterday’s events: “Some time ago Vladislav Surkov, Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration, explained that there were people who were enemies but whom you could talk sense into, and there were incorrigible enemies to whom you couldn’t and who simply needed to be “cleansed” from the political arena. So they are trying to cleanse it of me and others like me.”
On a visit to Chechnya she alleged that the former President of the Chechen Republic Akhmad Kadyrov vowed to assassinate her …
She remained defiant in the face of repeated threats but admitted she felt shaken by what she was convinced was a poisoning on a flight to cover the Beslan school hostage crisis in 2004 …
Toby Eady, her London literary agent, told The Observer he had recently tried to persuade Politkovskaya to leave Russia because of the threats. “She said she would not leave Russia until Putin was gone. She actually asked, with deeply dark humor, what would happen to her advance if she was killed.”
There seemed little doubt that the journalist was killed for her cutting reportage from Chechnya …
Anna Politkovskaya, like all journalists criticising the Government in Russia (and there are very few of them left), was subjected to intimidation by all the state institutions, official and semi-official, and was constantly called an enemy, particularly by the puppet government established by Putin in Chechnya. There are only two credible explanations of her murder: either it was committed on the orders of the Russian state authorities, in their central or Chechen hypostases, through the agency of the security services (which is most probable); or it may have been the work of people infected by the nationalist discourse encouraged by the state authorities.
Putin sought legitimacy through the blood of Chechnya, on the basis of which he built his neo-authoritarian regime, and now all the threads of power (executive, judicial, legislative, and also of the economy and mass media) run not only back to the Kremlin, but directly to the President’s Office.
That is the Russia which Putin is building with the aid of oil as a strategic weapon, in order to enforce respect for his enormous country, with the connivance of Western leaders who whitewash all his crimes in exchange for energy supplies …
The cause, which European political figures both of the left and of the right have mentioned to me in private conversation, is quite objective – it is fear of Russia. The Soviet Union was a time bomb which, if it had exploded, could have turned the whole world upside-down. Putin proved capable of bringing order and avoiding chaos.
… But what is more dangerous for the West – the chaos which it is said Putin has succeeded in avoiding, or the authoritarian regime which he has built and which, as the world already knows, has at its disposal oil and weapons of mass destruction?
And here are the results: the execution of inconvenient people for the benefit of the Tsar and the motherland.
… When indifference and fear are instilled, when everything is justified as a part of a struggle against the enemy, when politics, judicial power and money accumulate in the hands of a single person, democracy is weakened and the venal feel strong and free. And when the world flirts, as now, with doctrines of ethnic homogeneity and an apologia of general unitarianism, any deviation is deemed a threat to all. Politkovskaya reminded us of this a million times, and nobody took her seriously. She has died, and Russia is profoundly ailing.
In an instant it is back again: the image of an unpredictable and incomprehensible Russia. Anna Politkovskaya, an indomitable journalist, has been shot in broad daylight at the entrance to her home. The whole world rubs its eyes in disbelief. What is going on in Russia where it is becoming clear that critically minded journalists are game to be hunted down? Is this country in fact not the bulwark of stability, developing democracy and economic flowering that the Kremlin’s emissaries and the representatives of expensive PR agencies proclaim to the whole world?
Novaya gazeta, October 23, 2006
Russian journalism has suffered a great loss. The tragic death of Anna Politkovskaya has not only been a shock for Russian society but a blow to the ongoing democratic processes in Russia, including glasnost, one of the most important achievements of the changes in the country. We did not always agree with Anna Politkovskaya’s point of view regarding the situation in the Chechen Republic, but we all understand that criticism is an important part of life and is a counterbalance to totalitarianism and the fostering of a personality cult at the helm of power. We respected the professionalism of Anna Stepanovna, the civic courage of a journalist, the principled position which she expressed strikingly in her publications. I express my sincere condolences to the relatives, friends and colleagues of Anna Politkovskaya.
On Sunday, nine days after the murder of Anna Stepanovna, I lit a candle and put the lights out. I had seen her only twice, at meetings, but Anna Politkovskaya suddenly became somebody very close to me.
I saw her once in a shop on Myasnitskaya. I thought she was someone I knew, and then realized it was Politkovskaya. Simply, for some reason, I felt she was a friend. And when she was killed, I felt the blow very keenly. Anna, I will never forget you. Putin, I will never forget what you have done, no matter what drivel you utter.
A talented journalist has been taken from us before her time, an extraordinary and striking individual, an uncompromising fighter for truth and justice whose outstanding reports were exceptionally important and courageous. This is an irreparable loss.
Her battle for human rights and freedoms was an important part of the work for a better Russia and a better Europe. I sincerely hope that the Russian authorities will make every effort to arrest the guilty and get to the bottom of this crime.
She was a courageous person who wrote a lot about war and its victims. She was well known in the West. The reasons for her murder are obvious. One cannot pretend it was due to her financial or business interests, because she had none. Her only enemy was the corrupt Russian system which, most likely, is what killed her.
Like many Russians, Americans were shocked and saddened by the brutal murder of Anna Politkovskaya, a fearless investigative journalist, highly respected in both Russia and the United States. We extend our sympathy and prayers to her family and her friends.
Born in the United States to Soviet diplomats, Anna Politkovskaya cared deeply about her country. Through her efforts to shine a light on human rights abuses and corruption, especially in Chechnya, she challenged her fellow Russians – and, indeed, all of us – to summon the courage and will, as individuals and societies, to struggle against evil and rectify injustices.
We urge the Russian Government to conduct a vigorous and thorough investigation to bring to justice those responsible for her murder.
Letter of condolence to Ms Vera Politkovskaya and Mr Ilya Politkovsky [Anna’s daughter and son]
Dear Ms Politkovskaya,
Dear Mr Politkovsky,
The vile murder of Anna Politkovskaya has shocked me, as it has shocked all French people and all who defend freedom of the press. As a friend of Russia and of the Russian people, I know how angered your country has been by this particularly shameful murder of a passionate journalist whose professionalism and courage have been universally acknowledged, especially in her investigations into the situation in Chechnya.
You know that France attaches enormous importance to the fact that everything needful should be undertaken to ensure that justice is done, and the murderers of your mother found and punished.
In the tragic ordeal which has befallen you, I express to you my deepest and most sincere condolences, and pay the tribute of my profound respect to the memory of Anna Politkovskaya.
I ask you to accept, dear Ms Politkovskaya and Mr Politkovsky, this assurance of my sympathy for you and your family. With heartfelt emotion and sympathy in this hour of your tragic ordeal, Jacques Chirac
I am shocked by the news that Anna Politkovskaya was found dead in Moscow today, and I am deeply concerned about the circumstances in which she has lost her life. She was a journalist of exceptional courage and determination, and her reporting on the conflict in the Chechen Republic provided the Russian public and the entire world with an independent insight into the fate of ordinary people caught in this conflict. We have all lost a strong voice of the kind which is indispensable in any genuine democracy. It is essential for the circumstances to be clarified quickly and in a convincing manner.
I have been deeply shocked to hear of the vile assassination of Anna Politkovskaya. An angry woman, as she once called herself, she knew she was under threat, but as a committed journalist never gave up in the face of intimidation, remaining indignant and determined to inform and reveal the truth.
Amnesty International is appalled by the murder of Anna Politkovskaya. We believe she was targeted because of her work as a journalist, reporting on human rights abuses in Chechnya and other regions of the Russian Federation. Russia has lost a brave and dedicated human rights defender, who spoke out fearlessly against violence and injustice, and campaigned tirelessly to see justice done. Amnesty International calls on the Russian authorities to investigate her murder thoroughly and impartially, to make the findings of the investigation public, and for suspected perpetrators to be brought to justice in accordance with international law.
Anna was very close and dear to me. We often met in the course of the Chechen War and understood each other well. We were together when she was detained by Russian soldiers in the village of Khotuni. She has left a profound impression in the memory and hearts of many people with whom she came into contact during all these years. Forgive us, Anna, it hurts so much and it is so difficult to believe you are no longer there, but no one can forbid us to continue to love you.
Anna Politkovskaya was one of the most important human rights defenders in Russia today. Her dedicated work exposed grave human rights violations in the North Caucasus region, thereby allowing the world to understand that hidden corner of the globe. Having known her well and respected her enormously, the news of her death has made me very sad and angry. Her death is a great loss for Russia, and a great loss for the cause of human rights … While not everyone agreed with her views, no one questioned her professionalism, courage, and personal dedication to revealing the truth about controversial political issues. Ms Politkovskaya’s murder signals a major crisis of free expression and journalistic safety in Russia. The Russian authorities have already failed in investigating previous murder attempts and death threats. They have no excuse now not to investigate the circumstances of her death thoroughly, and to punish those who committed this deplorable crime.
I was not bothered in the slightest by what Politkovskaya wrote. It did not influence my work or my actions but, on the contrary, helped me, and I had no cause to want to persecute her. She was a woman, and I have never lowered myself to trying to settle scores with women. If even a gas canister explodes somewhere, they look for Chechen involvement, for “Chechen fingerprints.” We are used to that, but I believe we should get over this practice of making baseless accusations.
One of the few whose free voice was to be heard in the Russian press, Anna was a fearless journalist, well known for her reporting of the Government’s atrocities in Chechnya. Those who knew her knew her responsiveness. She deeply felt the sufferings of others and carried that attitude over into her work. She collected documents about the crimes of the Russian security forces in the North Caucasus, about the brutalities perpetrated by Ramzan Kadyrov and other Kremlin placemen in the region. She indefatigably investigated what the Government was concealing about the terrorist acts in Beslan and Nord-Ost, where hundreds of civilians died. She took on the most sensitive stories, the most awkward topics. By her example she inspired others, because it was impossible to intimidate her. She never wrote a single line in which she did not believe implicitly. And on Saturday, the 54th birthday of President Vladimir Putin, Anna Politkovskaya was murdered. The killers made no attempt to conceal the nature of the crime, made no attempt to represent it as anything other than a political killing. Even Russian politicians who always spoke against Politkovskaya’s reporting and tried to belittle its significance, are calling what happened a political murder.
The world’s most famous Russian journalist has been murdered. Actually, the only famous journalist on today’s most famous Russian newspaper. Young foreigners interested in our country know about Russia through Anna Politkovskaya’s books, and not through Mikhail Leontiev, Yuliya Latynina, Sergey Dorenko or Oksana Robski. Fine words have already been said about a blow struck at the very heart of Russian journalism, that the profession, free speech, and indeed the very lives of decent people are under threat. It is all lies.
You have to earn such a death. Observers of Kremlin life, chroniclers of the President’s meetings, uncompromising critics of the Government, those mercilessly exposing economic politics, gossip columnists – all belong to the same guild but have differing destinies.
“She lived and died like a soldier,” one of her colleagues said. No more than that.
Those who respected, loved and protected her have nothing to say because their facial muscles fail them. Everybody else’s are in full working order. Some have used muscles to put up posters, others to speak about an “irreparable loss.”
Novaya gazeta never left out a report by Politkovskaya, except once, on April 1, and once in an anniversary issue.
For seven years its editor, Dmitriy Muratov, printed everything his bloody-minded and unaccommodating columnist wrote. Colleagues in the journalistic guild spat behind her back, poured filth over her, debated whether she had some psychological proclivity to describe atrocities. They didn’t like her style, her turns of phrase were questionable, and there was a certain lack of humor.
Even on NTV before the state takeover, TV–6, and Echo of Moscow radio she was an infrequent guest. She did not like generalisations and long-winded discussions about the Wahhabi Internationale or al-Qaeda’s cash. In her presence you could not indulge in calling the Chechens or the federals brutes, Chechnya a dump, or Russia a whore.
Muratov was her unshakeable support, defending her from both friends and foes.
Why? Because this woman had put in the legwork on all her reports; because people came every day to see her; because officialdom feared her; because officials believed her even while they were excoriating her; because the zindan punishment pits she discovered really did exist; because she could not be bribed or intimidated, although she could be afraid, and was on more than one occasion; because she went to Chechnya not during the First War, when only the laziest Moscow journalists didn’t get out there. She went there during the Second Chechen War, whose beginning the liberal politicians Chubais and Nemtsov described as bringing Russian society together again, and marking the rebirth of the Army.
People brought her photographs and clips of atrocities which made men feel sick. She was asked why she went on writing when it was producing no reaction, and replied that it was her duty to write, and she was doing it.
She was on the side of the humiliated. The powers that be she found equally repellent, whichever side they were on. She was not seduced by the interest taken in her by Zbigniew Brzezinski or people from the US State Department, and her report on the reception for the “esteemed democrats of Russia” by Bush and Rice at the US Ambassador’s residence was written in the vein of light political satire.
It is not true that there was no reaction to her writing. Back in the days of Kadyrov Senior, one of his henchmen angrily shouted at the local and Moscow journalists, “Politkovskaya writes in a way that makes people believe her, but you …” He dismissed them contemptuously.
Friends and family of Anna! Please accept my profound condolences.
I do not know whether the Orthodox Church will canonise Anna Politkovskaya, and neither do I care. For me Anna was a saint. For me she is still alive, because I often go to her memorial website and meet there a circle of people who think and feel as I do. With these people Anna generously continues to acquaint me. They helped me to survive, and accordingly it is precisely Anna who helps me to live worthily the fragment of life’s path allotted me by fate.
Thank you, Anna, for having been among us. Neither Putin, nor his evil henchmen, nor your pro-Kremlin journalist colleagues have been able to kill you. In this undeclared war of honor against dishonor you have come out the winner for eternity. May your name be revered!
They have killed Anna Politkovskaya.
She stood selflessly, squarely, and looked the new, or perhaps merely reawakening, Russian fascism straight in the eye. They tried to kill her earlier. She stood up for the humiliated and insulted, against untruths and arbitrariness. The fewer such champions remain, the brighter does their example shine in the night and the more clearly is their voice heard, which is so unwelcome to gross ears. One cannot pass over in silence either the weakness of the Russian democrats or the indifference of Western democrats, all of whom are complicit in her death. But who will fill this new yawning breach for Russia?
Galina Starovoitova once told her Russian democratic comrades-in-arms, “If men are cowards, a woman will lead.” In January 1991 in Moscow she led a 100,000-strong demonstration, despite the warnings of the Armed Forces, under the slogan of “Freedom for Lithuania!” She was later murdered in just the same way, in her stairwell, and in this instance too those who took out the contract will not be found. But will men be found capable of standing up for the entrancing star of decency and freedom? That would be a worthy rejoinder.
From Lithuania, condolences to the family of this woman who died for truth and to the last remaining Russian democrats.
Anna Politkovskaya. I saw her only a few times, and never met her personally. A young, good-looking woman. Born in 1958, the same year as my mother. Very composed and self-assured. It is impossible to forget people like her, because your first impression when you meet them is that they are real human beings, and that is how you remember them. Like many others, I can see that this murder was committed because Anna Politkovskaya’s activity gave no peace to those in our country who are violating all the laws of truth.
I am still not very old and, looking at the example of this courageous woman, I want to live my life honorably, as she did. For that, as I understand it, I must be sure always to stay close to the truth. As regards Anna Politkovskaya, truth was undoubtedly and always on her side.
People kill, or more precisely take out contracts for the killing, of those they fear. Those who rode to power in our country on anti-Chechen chauvinism, on their willingness to “burst into the latrines and snuff out” their supposed enemies, fear most of all that the truth should become known about what this bravado of theirs has turned out to be. They are afraid of the truth about Beslan and Nord-Ost, about the deaths of civilians, tortures, security sweeps, a war which has lasted many years. We all know, as they do themselves, that in recent years it was primarily Anna Politkovskaya in Novaya gazeta who told the truth about this. She spoke intelligently and professionally, which was important in getting her message heard. It was heard in Russia, as always, however, only by those who had ears to hear, and by those beyond its borders. During my recent visit to London it was amazing to see Anna Politkovskaya’s books on the shelves of all the bookshops. They are bestsellers there, people read them! And of course, that annoyed “them.” It annoyed those who unleashed and supported the war in Chechnya. The truth Anna told was a slap in the face for those who constantly lie to us, trying to treat us as useful idiots.
In recent times every day has seen the feeling of shame grow in me for Russia and for all of us, its citizens. I am ashamed to live in a country where those in power have no conscience or intelligence. This is mainly because I believe that any people gets the government it deserves.
On the other hand, hope grows in me when I remember that there are still some in Russia like Anna Politkovskaya. Such stars shine apparently unpredictably, perhaps once in a lifetime, but in the surrounding darkness you are dazzled by the unexpected light they radiate. I know for a fact that, having once encountered such a star and having understood her significance, it is impossible to carry on living as you did before. The encounter makes the darkness only too depressingly obvious, and the light from such a star is imprinted in the memory and provides eternal guidance. It can even provoke a feeling of envy.
Anna was umbilically attached to the Nord-Ost tragedy. These last four years she has been the mouthpiece of Nord-Ost, supporting those of us who had lost our friends and relatives in that gas chamber. She helped us to prevail in the unequal battle with a lying government. She was not allowed to attend the court hearings into Nord-Ost; the investigators and judges of the Basmanny court were afraid of her. They were afraid of her truth and irreconcilability. How fearsome the truth about crimes must be and how dangerous for those complicit in them if, in order to silence it, they have to resort to the gun. “What are we going to let them get away with tomorrow?” Anna would say when we assembled on the anniversaries of the tragedy. Alas, we are again too late. We have allowed them to kill Anna, perhaps the most loyal friend of those she tried to save, persuading terrorists to let children and adults drink, whom the Government had condemned to a monstrous death. She will not be there at the anniversary on October 26. We have been orphaned.
It is almost impossible to believe. We all feel that we have lost someone close to us. Anna Politkovskaya was a much greater champion of human rights than many of those who apply that description to themselves. She took to heart the problems of those who work in Chechnya as closely and passionately as her own. Now we can reveal that in the Caucasus Anna Politkovskaya worked constantly with members of Memorial, travelled together with them throughout the Republic, stayed in their homes. She constantly used materials from Memorial, sometimes referencing them, sometimes not, in order not to set anybody up. She herself appeared to live a charmed life, but it was a principle to publish everything, irrespective of the possible consequences. Only bullets could stop her. Will those bullets stop her cause? That now depends on the living.
It is essential to find the culprits if there is to be any possibility of living in democratic conditions.
A completely weird sense of emptiness, of loss, and powerlessness. It is dreadful to live in a country where crudity and barbarism reign. It is dreadful that nothing can be changed. I am 20. I am studying to be a journalist. I often read Politkovskaya’s articles. Actually, she was the reason I bought Novaya gazeta. I do not know what kind of journalist I will turn out to be, but I will most certainly follow Anna’s example. Revered be her memory!
This vile and shameful crime. There have been too many unsolved murders of journalists in Russia. If Russia wants to be a democratic law-governed state it cannot intimidate independent journalists or silence them. Without freedom of the press and criticism from their direction, the democratic system of values cannot exist.
Lord, how full of sadness I am! How dreadful! I am studying to be a journalist in England. I read Anna’s book, Putin’s Russia. What a shame that it is not available at home, in Russia, because my family do not know English very well. When I heard the news, many of my foreign friends tried to console me by saying that she had taken the blow on herself, that by her death she would force world public opinion to to take action, that now all the newspapers would bring pressure to bear on Russia, but how can I explain to people who have not lived there that our country does not care about world opinion? I sincerely hope that my friends are right. How can I express the pain and fear, and how are we to live without such journalists as Anna Stepanovna now? May you rest in peace.
It is a great pity that there is so little room in present-day Russia for an honest person. I did not take much interest in politics, thinking it was not my business, but now I understand that Anna did everything in her power to avert the triumph of evil in our country. I thank her for opening my eyes to many things, and pray for the repose of her soul.
[Dresden, October 10, 2006, at a joint press conference with the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel]
Right, if you will permit me, I will also say a couple of words on this topic. First of all I would like to note that no matter who committed this crime and no matter what motives these people had, we must confirm that this is a crime of vile brutality. And of course it should not be … should not remain unpunished. The motives may be highly diverse. Yes indeed, this journalist was a harsh critic of the present authorities in Russia, but I think that journalists should know this, at least experts are well aware of this, the extent of her influence on political life in the country, in Russia, was extremely insignificant. She was known in journalistic circles, in human rights circles, in the West. I repeat, her influence on political life in Russia was minimal. And the murder of such a person, the cruel murder of a woman, a mother, it was directed of itself also against our country, against Russia, against the current government authorities in Russia. And this murder of itself inflicts on Russia much, and on the current government authorities both in Russia and in the Chechen Republic, where she was active professionally recently, inflicts on the current government authorities a far greater loss and damage than her publications. This is an absolutely obvious fact for everybody in Russia. But I repeat, no matter who this was and no matter what motives these people were guided by, they are criminals. They must be found, unmasked and punished. We will do all that is required for this.
Condoleezza Rice: Thank you very much. First let me say that I am very much saddened, as was the entire world, by the brutal murder of Anna Politkovskaya. She was a heroine to many people.
She stood for what is best in independent journalism, a willingness to try to get to the truth at whatever cost. And if I may just say to you, Ilya, that while I know the world has lost someone who was a symbol, you have lost your mother and we are very saddened by that. But her work goes on, and Novaya gazeta is a fine publication that I think represents a very good independent voice here in Russia.
The role of the independent press is extremely important in society, particularly for democratic development. And it’s important not just because it is an important value to have an independent press, although it is one of the most important values of democracy. But it also is important to the proper functioning of government in democracy.
People need information in order to hold their government accountable. And only through an independent press can that information be developed and communicated. And whether it is in fighting corruption or questioning government policies or communicating to the Government the concerns of people, an independent press plays an extremely important role.
I want to encourage you to keep working. It is extremely important work, and we are very supportive of the role of independent media here in Russia. We know it has not been easy, but it is an important path – an important road – even if it’s not an easy one …
Dmitriy Muratov: Madam Secretary of State, we will of course continue our work, but this is our newspaper’s third terrible loss in the last six years. In 2000 Igor Domnikov was killed by hitmen, who are presently on trial. He was murdered because of his professional work, and the contract on him was taken out by a corrupt official who is the Deputy Governor of one of Russia’s provinces. Three years ago the Deputy Editor of Novaya gazeta, Yury Shchekochikhin, Deputy of the State Duma and Chairman of its Commission for the Struggle against Corruption, also died in mysterious circumstances. The case has yet to be investigated. Now Anna has been murdered. Is this not too high a price to pay for the right to do your job?
Condoleezza Rice: You have recalled for us a very sad history of the last six years and one with which I am familiar. There have been many tragedies for Novaya gazeta, and you must feel it very personally. We have told the Russian Government that these murders and the murders of other journalists must be thoroughly investigated and people must begin to understand that those who have done this will pay the price.
It’s hard for me to answer your question because I know these have been great personal losses. It’s difficult to step back and give an abstract answer to a very personal human question. But I think that if you look at history and struggles in many different countries under many different historical circumstances, there have been people who sacrificed on the basis of principle, people who sacrificed for a cause and those sacrifices are never in vain because ultimately freedom will win out.
In particular, investigative journalists are very often in danger because by their very nature they expose the truth. Very often they run afoul of those who have a lot at stake and a lot to lose if the truth comes out. I recognise that it’s a very dangerous profession, but without investigative journalists who are willing to seek the truth, it’s very hard for a democracy to function.
If it is any comfort at all – at a personal level I’m sure that it’s not – at a professional level if it is any comfort you should know that these murders have received world-wide attention. People are watching. People are pressing for a full investigation and for punishment of those who have committed these crimes. You are not alone in your struggle.
Novaya gazeta: How important is it for a politician to have strong emotions? By that I mean feelings of kindness and openness.
Condoleezza Rice: It is important for people who are engaged in politics to have human emotions, compassion, and most importantly to have principles. I watch very carefully the influence and tremendous effect that political leaders can have on the lives of ordinary people, and they need to be people who understand their impact.
It’s very important for politicians, particularly in democratic societies, not to lose touch with the people that they represent. Even the President of the United States leaves the White House and visits with schoolchildren, or goes to a retirement home and sees the effects of our policies on older people. I think it’s very important for politicians, and I know that when the President does this it has a big effect on him.
Ultimately I think a politician has to lead people and not be led by them, and that very often means making difficult, sometimes unpopular decisions. People expect their leaders to do exactly that. If the job were only to make easy decisions, anyone could do it. Because it’s often a matter of difficult decisions, I think it takes a very special person to be a politician in a democracy. I admire very much our people who have entered political life. I admire people who want to serve their country in that way. It’s not easy because you’re very often making difficult, unpopular decisions for the good of a large number of people.
Novaya gazeta: So, politics is not just a form of business?
Condoleezza Rice: No, it’s not. It’s a form of service. [Politicians have] different values than those who go into other professions.
Dmitriy Muratov: Yesterday we read a report from Reporters Without Borders [The Worldwide Press Freedom Index for 2005] which shows Russia in 138th place in the world in terms of free speech, but the United States is in 137th place in respect of reporting on events in Iraq. What is this – self-censorship by journalists or state policy? Fear or patriotism?
Condoleezza Rice: It’s certainly not government policy. But I’ll tell you something, I watch our reporting on Iraq every day, and our reporters in Iraq are very tough on the US Government. It was the American press that exposed the very bad events at Abu Ghraib. That came out first in the American press. I don’t know what study you’re talking about, but the US press reports exactly what they think, and they try to do it accurately. With press reporting – with freedom of the press – goes responsibility. It’s not just reporting anything you hear or anything someone tells you. The American press tries to be accurate in what they are reporting, but they report in the very toughest of circumstances.
There is one circumstance that sometimes the American press will not report: if it is going to put our soldiers in danger. Then they may decide that they do not want to report on something that might cost American soldiers their lives. That’s another part of press responsibility. The Government can’t force the New York Times not to print something, but the New York Times can decide if something is potentially dangerous to the lives of American soldiers and not print it.
Zoya Yeroshok, Andrey Lipsky, Dmitriy Muratov, Ilya Politkovsky
From a radio behind a grille outside a shop I heard snatches of a report: “Militia and ambulances in front of the entrance … journalists waiting for the body of Anna Politkovskaya to be brought out …” I stopped and looked about me, at people’s faces. It was as if nothing had happened. Had they not heard? I ran home, turned on Echo of Moscow radio, and stood numb with shock by the door. Eight years ago I felt the same blow when I heard Galina Starovoitova had been murdered, and the same sense of emptiness, except that now it felt more like a vacuum which makes it impossible to breathe or go on living.
I went to the Metro station to buy Novaya gazeta. There were several people in front of me also buying newspapers and magazines. I looked hopefully over their shoulders, but no. A glossy crossword magazine, Sport, Vedomosti, World of Crime. I hunched up against the cold, feeling lonely and ill at ease in my own town. And now also frightened. I looked at the mothers walking placidly by with their prams. Were they not afraid? Apparently not. They probably really believe that life in Russia has improved, that per capita income is rising inexorably, and that we are the best and strongest superpower in the world. They probably believe that Russia’s democracy is in great shape, only ours is a special kind, “sovereign” democracy which is completely different from what they have in the West. From developed socialism to sovereign democracy! Any day now they will blow the dust off the old history textbooks, and today’s schoolchildren will sing a slightly adapted Soviet national anthem in patriotism lessons, under a portrait of little Volodya (only now not Ulyanov but Putin), and will solemnly promise to do their duty to their Great Motherland and learn to inform on each other.
Where now are all those who huddled round their radios to listen with bated breath to the speeches of the Democrats at the First Congress of Deputies, who collected signatures for the Sakharov Constitution, and rejoiced when the Berlin Wall came down? The years of my youth were those of perestroika. How avidly we read Dr Zhivago, Gulag Archipelago, Dudintsev’s White Clothes. Could I have dreamt then that very soon we would recoil, back to the times of the Soviet regime but repainted now with the dubious values of consumerism, pseudo-religion and fascism? In those days the process of democratisation seemed irreversible, but how wrong we were. How short our memories are. Here we are, wanting back under that yoke, wanting a return to the repressions, wanting the Gulag. History teaches us nothing.
I am ashamed today to be Russian because of Chechnya, the anti-Georgian campaigns, and the Russian nationalist processions. I am ashamed to be Russian Orthodox because the Church made no attempt to protect its brother Georgians, and because it will never canonise Anna Politkovskaya who, in its stead, comforted and interceded for the helpless. I am ashamed to be a native of St Petersburg because those 200 people who came to the meeting in memory of Anna Politkovskaya were even fewer than the number of journalists murdered in the post-Soviet period, and also because the courts of Petersburg acquit the killers of “non-Russians.” What does that leave? It leaves just one thing: to continue to be a human being. “Not to bow down before the times, but to be the brains of your age, to be a human being,” as the poetess Sofia Parnok wrote in an equally hopeless era in the last century.
Today it is 40 days since Anna died, and I will again light candles. Anna Politkovskaya had the strength and courage to be a human being. May I be able to do the same!
I am shocked. It seems unbelievable. At this moment in time Politkovskaya was probably one of the best-known journalists not only in Russia but in the entire world. She received numerous international awards for her work. In its repercussions this murder is comparable with the murders of Yury Shchekochikhin and Vlad Listiev.
I find the motives completely obvious. All these years Anna Politkovskaya concentrated principally on Chechnya, Beslan and Nord-Ost, that is, the topics most disagreeable to Russia’s rulers, the FSB and the Army. Any of these organizations might have commissioned this crime. I frankly do not believe it will be solved, because those with an interest in her death are precisely the people who are to conduct the investigation. I hope nevertheless that a miracle will occur and that the killers will be found.
Russia is becoming an ever more dangerous country for independent journalists and opposition politicians. None of us is immune to a similar fate.
She was one of the greatest friends of our country. In recent years she wrote excellent articles about Georgia. In Russia many decent people have come forward to protest at her killing, the first time that has happened on such a scale. I am filled with admiration and thank those people.
I grieve together with the Novaya gazeta team at the death of Anna Politkovskaya. For us she was a highly professional journalist, an honest person and a great colleague. I had the privilege of being closely acquainted with Anna, and I know she was a true citizen of our country. It is patently obvious that she was killed for telling the truth, because of her conscience, and her desire to change our life for the better.
On October 7 a disgraceful, cynical and cowardly shot from round the corner was fired at a woman from whose writing we learned the truth. Anna Politkovskaya! This fine, proud name we, Chechens and Ingushes, always pronounced with more reverence and admiration than any other name we had spoken for over 50 years. She represented the honor and conscience of Russia, and probably nobody will ever know the source of her fanatical courage and love of the work she was doing. She was a journalist like no other working today. She loved Russia so much that she turned down the opportunity of going to live and work in America, in security, in peace and quiet. “Novaya gazeta still needs me,” she said. On this holy Muslim festival of Ramadan, we Chechens and Ingushes pray for you and your soul. We will dedicate our lives to the cause you began. No one can replace you, but we will try to fight as you did to enable people to live honorably in Russia.
The dozens of assignments in the North Caucasus she survived, but now, in the entrance to her home, in the lift … A person of extraordinary courage and inflexible will, she was and remained to the end an example of the fact that in all circumstances a journalist can (and should, as she herself believed and demanded of her colleagues) write at the dictate solely of their conscience, with no nod to prevailing circumstances and no submission to them. She, just like her colleague Shchekochikhin, “was careless about the enemies she chose,” and the more powerful, shameful and vengeful those enemies proved, the more heedlessly and furiously she attacked them. She brooked no compromises in the struggle for what she considered the truth, and tried to demonstrate that truth to all who read or heard her. For this she was hated, threatened and hunted, on one occasion in the most literal sense of the word.
And today, when we must try to ensure that the killers and those who ordered the killing are found and punished, let us remember what Politkovskaya wrote about: Nord-Ost; Beslan; abductions and torture of people in Chechnya; violations of human rights; despotism and government crimes. Let us say straight out: there could have been no other reason why she was killed. That is why it is so important that the answer to the question of who did it should be obtained by society, to enable it to decide how to react.
I express my profound condolences in connection with the murder of Anna Politkovskaya … We are losing so many people. The state authorities promise to detect, to track down, to bring to court, to give a proper assessment, but on their faces what we see is not real grief, only a mask. There are a lot of these masks. Now yet again no less a person than the Prosecutor-General of the Russian Federation has taken the investigation under his absolutely and completely personal control. What does “personal” mean in this context? Why “control” and not “supervision”? Why not individual, collective, corporate, or some other kind of nonsensical “control”? What help has it been in the past? What help is it going to be now? Why should Mr Yury Chaika feel the need to faff about, to control, to involve himself in the detail of conducting a murder inquiry? He does not need to “control” the investigation, but to find the killers. Some hope there is of that. It is really all just too much trouble for them.
Torture. They are no longer capable of doing anything without torture. How could they possibly conduct an investigation or bring a case to court without torture? And when the accused protest that they have been tortured – physically, with cold, and hunger and vile forms of degradation – they reply that this is just criminals slandering our agencies, trying, together with journalists, to discredit the system.
They could not believe that this frail woman would stand up and say torture in their torture chambers was unacceptable. They couldn’t conceive that there were still people in Russia who cared about that sort of thing! And so they killed her.
It is difficult, intolerable to have to say of her, she is dead. We grieve together with the whole world. The life of a writer has been cut off, a journalist at the very peak of her talent. Courageous, brave, Anna lived a special life without compromise, and for the people of the Caucasus there was still hope. Frail and seemingly defenceless, by the power of her limitless courage she was the hope of many living here, ordinary people who wanted to live in peace. She was a spokesman, from whom society learned about the monstrous misconduct of the state authorities towards their own citizens.
Anna was not only a famous journalist, but also a civil rights defender, and the pride of all of Russian society. The cause of this crime was her courage and the crystalline purity of her conscience. In Russia it is the defenders of human rights who pay for the thuggish policies of the authorities.
There is no doubt that this was a political martyrdom. Anna simply could not take no interest, although she surely knew better than anybody that there would be no pity for her either. She did not retreat, she rushed to try to save the children of Beslan, and would have saved many if she had not been poisoned. In Beslan they were afraid of her fearlessness.
She took part in the investigation of the tragedy in Beslan, in Nord-Ost, exposed the crimes in Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan. The authorities of every stripe feared these exposures, because it was simply impossible to silence Anna.
Who has dared to commit this dreadful, infamous act?
One way or another, the murder of Anna Politkovskaya is a consequence of the lawlessness of the government authorities and their immoral policies, which increasingly betray their true nature. It is a matter of honor for the law enforcement institutions to investigate this villainy thoroughly and to name the names of the murderers.
But if this crime is not solved, if the crime is not investigated properly and the murderers are not put in the dock, it will be clear in whose interests the murder was committed. Behind the invariable failure to investigate and solve such major crimes stand the authorities, whose limitless irresponsibility gives birth to them.
Voice of Beslan offers its condolences to the family and friends of Anna Politkovskaya, to all who knew her and worked with her, including the Novaya gazeta team.
Anna always was and will remain for us an example of amazing purity and courage.
I did not know Anna Politkovskaya personally, but heard about her work, the work of a journalist who tirelessly defended the rights of those deprived of freedom, and who stood as a sentinel for truth and freedom of speech. She knew she risked paying the highest price for her activity. Her murder is a dreadful crime and a violation of free speech. It is a stain on the honor of the representatives of the free world, and also on my own.
When talking to the Russian government authorities, people in the free world should not talk only about oil, gas, or the conquest of space. We should speak also about the problems of guaranteeing freedom, tolerance and respect for the views of others. This needs to be done if only to prevent a repetition of such crimes in the future.
For my part, I pray for Anna Politkovskaya in the words of an old Polish prayer, “Send her Thy eternal peace, O Lord.” Some day we will meet in another, better world.
The Yabloko Party considers the murder of Anna Politkovskaya to be political. Direct political responsibility for her murder is borne by those in charge of the country who condone the physical extermination of their political opponents. Her journalism was a profession not of the word, but of deeds, action. For the publication of facts and evidence of crimes committed by the government authorities and in their name, she was hated by people who did not trouble to conceal their hatred. Her striving to be in the most difficult situations in order to intervene, to help, to tell the truth, elicited active counter-measures. She was prevented from reaching Beslan in September 2004. What she has been kept away from now she can no longer tell us. She was a very well-known, internationally renowned political journalist. For a murder of this kind the President bears personal responsibility. For the murder of a well-known, outstanding political journalist who was systematic in her opposition, the state authorities bear full responsibility. Russia, having lost a journalist of this calibre, has been diminished by another major figure.
On behalf of the students of the Physics Faculty of Omsk State University I offer condolences to the family, colleagues, and everybody who knew Anna Politkovskaya. I appeal to Anna’s colleagues and very much beg them to continue to work, to write, and to tell the truth about our lives.
The news of the murder of Anna Politkovskaya, well known as a journalist and human rights defender, has been received in Ukraine with a sense of great sorrow and disquiet. Please accept my sincere condolences on the occasion of this irreparable loss. People in Ukraine will remember Anna Politkovskaya as a courageous person and professional who defended the high ideals of democracy and freedom of speech. I hope that those guilty of committing this terrible crime will be found and justly punished.
The Chechen people has been outraged to learn of the vile contract killing of Anna Politkovskaya who has been a fearless witness of its torments of recent years. Motivated by human sympathy and a sense of professional duty, Anna never succumbed to fear, or to the official anti-Chechen hysteria. She was one of the few Russian journalists who systematically, year after year, exposed the crimes against humanity which the Russian military machine visited upon the defenceless civilian population of the Chechen Republic.
The memory of this great Russian woman, who shared the tragedy of the Chechen people and did everything she could to convey the truth about it to the world community, will forever remain in our hearts and will, in the course of time, be perpetuated in the Republic of Chechnya.
Novaya gazeta, November 16, 2006
[Anna’s mother, Raisa Mazepa, went into hospital shortly before the death of her husband. She was in the Clinic of the President’s Management Board and was being prepared for an operation.]
“We kept her husband’s death from her for two days,” Alexander Altunin, manager of the surgical department recalls. “Then we decided to tell her, after first giving her a sedative injection. She bore her grief with great dignity, and even agreed to stay in hospital. We performed a major operation on her. Raisa Alexandrovna was anaemic and we had to give her many injections of drugs, nutrient solutions and blood substitutes. She took it stoically. Her daughters visited her constantly. For something like that suddenly to happen …”
When news of the murder came out, the television and telephone were switched off in Raisa’s ward. For the first day the family concealed Anna’s death from her, but they realized they could not continue to do so for long: reports of the murder were in every edition of the news. At any moment Raisa might go out into the corridor and see a television or talk to one of the patients.
“Yury and Lena phoned me and said it was probably best that she should be told,” Alexander Altunin recalls. “I phoned the cardiologist, Raisa was given a cardiogram, and we established that her heart was in good order. In the morning she was given a sedative and then her daughter Lena came with her husband. Physically Raisa bore her grief reasonably well, partly, no doubt, because of the sedative. I spoke to her the day after the murder. She was very stoical, told me about herself and her work in the USA, and then said that her daughter’s death was like a stab in the back.”
When Raisa was discharged from the hospital, she was feeling well, walking steadily, and her family sent her off to convalesce. She is recovering from the operation rapidly now.
“During the whole time she was in hospital Raisa Alexandrovna never once showed her grief. She is a very reserved person, and very brave.”
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon.
Where there is strife, harmony
Where there is error, truth
Where there is doubt, faith.
Where there is despair, hope.
Where there is darkness, light
Where there is sadness, joy.
The Unpublished Letters of Marina Tsvetayeva is how it all began. As a student in the Faculty of Journalism I sat in the kitchen of Anna’s flat. She was a schoolgirl then, and while my fellow students were taking notes, she and I dissected the gossamer of the poetess’s idiosyncratic punctuation. Prof Rosenthal did not cover such matters in his lectures. The banned Tsvetayeva book had been brought from America by her father, who worked at the United Nations.
And then she herself became a student in the Faculty, following in the footsteps of Yelena, her elder sister. I was a four-storey-high Moscow lout who had earned his first money as a child doing odd jobs between excursions with my mum to the Conservatory, and graduated from a School for Working Youth. She had graduated from a specialist school and was living in accordance with the principles of classical literature. A tempestuous romance and immediately a devoted relationship. A trainee summer writing letters to each other. The slightly bitter smell of her sandalwood perfume, a student wedding in a one-roomed Khrushchev-era flat. A flower in my cap and a bottle of Moskovskaya vodka in a string bag with some black bread, such was the manner in which the bridegroom collected his bride. Her diplomat family did not appreciate the humor. Afterwards, socialist poverty and the joy when a new life is created.
My son entered the world and my student friends congratulated me: “Well done! Now you’ll have someone to send out for beer in the morning.” Instead, I remember rushing round the chemists’ shops of Moscow looking for dill water to soothe colic.
Then, a daughter. Hurrah. She was called Vera.
Later, a nationalistically challenged moron of a schoolteacher with a straggly little beard gave my daughter a hard time in drawing lessons because of her surname, which he thought was Jewish. I wanted to treat him to a knuckle sandwich, Anna was sure that was the wrong approach and firmly protected the teacher’s teeth. Her more humane approach triumphed. We explained at length to Vera that the teacher was barking up the wrong tree, but she should not demean herself by putting him right, just grin and bear it.
Anna gained her degree. Of course, her dissertation was on Tsvetayeva, and brilliantly defended. The plume of our student romance dissipated and the outlines of our relationship were fine-tuned, both matrimonial and professional. My first TV assignment in Rustavi. The agony of my first script. That evening Anna read the children a story remembered from her own childhood about a brave little tin soldier, or from mine, about Little Gavroche in Les Misérables. Having put the children to bed, she came to help me out. “… and thus the myth of seven-league boots came partly to be embodied in the idea of the internal combustion engine.” That was Anna writing about motorbike racing. It was terrible, but it was used in the broadcast. Years later we laughed at ourselves in the kitchen on Herzen Street.
By now the flat was ours, and we were joined by Solly Zeus Smile or, more simply, Martyn the Dobermann. He wasn’t at all Dobermannish. In our crazy flat we had a growing dog with a fearsome bark but as affectionate as a kitten. He had some doggy sixth sense for identifying (infrequent) enemies. When he was a year and a half old, Anna saved his life by giving him injections every two hours. My friends offered to take the dog to the children’s hospital where they worked, insert a catheter in a vein, and save us a lot of trouble. Anna was appalled. “We really couldn’t do that. Alexander and I will take it in turns to get up.”
Relations with my mother were difficult. Of course, we had arguments, mainly about how to bring the children up. Dr Spock was Anna’s bible: “Teach them to swim before they can walk,” and all that. The main bone of contention was finding a good nursery. It was impossible to get the children into one. I was a junior editor at a sports publishing house. I got a job teaching Asian martial arts, but in the early 1980s all that sort of thing was banned. There was no money for winter boots. In the mornings I ran barefoot in the snow in the courtyard so my feet didn’t feel the cold on the way to work in Ostankino. The children followed behind me with their sniffles and coughs and upsets. Arguments.
After fairly wild evenings, I wrote in the kitchen at night. Anna herself very much wanted to write. Just 100 metres from where we lived were the offices of the railway union’s newspaper, The Whistle. She went in but returned in dismay. The director had suggested she should begin her article with the words, “How’s it going, railway worker?” You just can’t write like that! There were tears in the evenings at the grey web of everyday routine.
She was surprised I only wrote for work, never for myself. I told her about how, when I was doing my Army training, the sergeant had pulled my diary out of my locker. He read it out loud to the entire unit. Now, I explained to Anna, I kept all my thoughts in my head where no buffoon in epaulettes could grope around in them. I never saw her keep a diary after that. Her diary was her articles. Writing what you think and not what pays is like keeping a diary.
We often had visitors, and there were theatres and the Conservatory near by. “I am my own independent creative unit!” she would say a little sadly, but with a smile, a phrase adopted from some journalism textbook. Everybody who visited us on Herzen Street remembers it, but nobody realized the extent to which it was to become her guiding principle.
She systematically investigated the theatres around us. All her friends and neighbours knew by heart the play, Lunin, or the Death of Jacques at the theatre on Malaya Bronnaya. The ideas of the Decembrist revolutionaries of 1825, and especially of their wives, were discussed passionately in our home.
Marina Goldovskaya, my journalism lecturer, made a film about our family for America. The film is mainly about Anna. Marina several times asked permission to show it in Russia but Anna was always opposed to that. Our friends have their own ideas about the film. In it I come across like the Red Commander of the civil war, Vasiliy Chapayev, only on the barricades of perestroika, saving the Fatherland. Anna is Anka the machine-gunner, lugging shells up to me and guarding the rear. It was just what an American audience wanted, but in Russia it was an embarrassment because of its unintentional support of the reformers’ myth-making. In this film, A Taste of Freedom, the machine-gunner, dissatisfied with her fate, talks publicly about divorce for the first time. Our favorite scene in Chapayev is the suicidal attack. The White Guards advance and are sprayed with machine-gun fire. “A fine advance,” and back comes the contemptuous plebeian reply, “Intelligentsia!”
My heroes are visiting. The entrepreneur Artyom Tarasov is telling us something about residual oil. We don’t understand his diagrams too well, but in the evening talk together about Russia, and an oil glut which will stand everything on its head. It is plain that the so-called Democrats are already dragging their weary bones to Millionaires’ Row on the Rublyovskoye Highway, closer and closer to Stalin’s favorite haunts. Corrupt officials are receiving state awards, and Anna is shocked when she sees the son of 1960s icon Vladimir Vysotsky handing an award named after his father to the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, Nikolai Aksenenko. The FSB, Interior Ministry and Ministry of Defence wouldn’t dream of celebrating their anniversaries anywhere other than in the Kremlin. In the midst of a crime wave, the cops, using the money of taxpayers who are afraid to go out in the evenings, churn out television programs about how brilliantly they are fighting the criminals. The worse it is for some, the better it is for others. Perhaps an oil glut will give us a breathing space; otherwise portraits of our beloved leader would already be hanging not just in every office but in every home. Anna says, “It’s lucky Martyn’s tail was docked when he was a puppy. He doesn’t chase it the way we do.” We talked about the “sovereign business” run by the wives of officials who make speeches about the struggle against corruption.
Anna’s first real victory was on the program Vzglyad [“Viewpoint”]. Volodya Mukusev and I came back from Minsk where we had been earning money by doing meetings with viewers. Anna turned out the pockets of my anorak before putting it in the wash. “Have you read this?” she asked. It was an urgent appeal for help, in a woman’s handwriting, in red ink, about the Belarussian Children’s Haematology Center. “This is addressed to you because of your Chernobyl,” Anna exclaimed. “We must phone immediately!” A week later I returned to Minsk. Blurred filming with an amateur video camera which can be taken anywhere without being conspicuous. The truth is being concealed. We dig out information. Parents’ tears.
I was away in a different part of Russia when Andrey Razbash edited the story, which swept Europe. In a short time millions were collected for the clinic. Anna insisted I should go back for an “inspection” trip to Minsk, and later to Germany where Russian doctors were being trained up. Raisa Gorbacheva visited the children’s hospital. Within a few years the doctors were no longer Russian, and the Haematology Center was the best in Eastern Europe. Anna was delighted to see the situation so radically altered. Before the program went out more than 80 per cent of the children there were dying. Only a few years later, roughly the same number were being cured and the remainder were in remission.
She sat distraught and frozen in my car next to the house where journalist Vlad Listiev had just been murdered. We had never been close, but a year before she had arranged an amazing party at our house. It was very crowded, another attempt to bind together something that was falling apart.
International Women’s Day, March 8, 1995, wasn’t the obvious day to choose. Vlad did not drink, went away to offer good wishes to the women of the world live on air, and came back to the party. Everyone had had plenty to eat and drink and was in a good mood. Anna noticed a slight whiff of money. “You didn’t once mention Ivan Kivelidi. He gave you the start-up capital for your television company. You won’t last long at this rate.” That same year the charming Ivan Kivelidi was mysteriously poisoned.*
Sitting in that car, neither of us yet realized that an oil bonanza would send everyone into moral hibernation, that the mass media would glamorously and expensively expire in the hands of “natural monopolies,” whose naturalness was not obvious. I often heard on my assignments, “What a fearless namesake you have working at Novaya gazeta.” I was glad people could see that, and were aware of her commitment to her guiding principle. There were threatening signs. At home pistols were left in parcels at the door of our flat. Another time the fire hydrant in the attic above was turned full on. That was unambiguously directed at her.
By 1996 the whiff of money had become a stench. The mysterious “box of Xerox paper” containing half a million bucks for Yeltsin’s election campaign. Wealthy individuals who had built themselves mansions beyond the borders of Russia claimed that Russia was still their home. Anna was busy trying to save old people from a home in Grozny and told me on her return how a former friend of mine, by now a big official, had waited for ages by a corridor the old people were to emerge from, keeping well away from the gunfire like the coward he was, but well within range of the television cameras, in order to get himself filmed as their saviour and shown as such to the whole of Russia. To her great satisfaction, he failed, but it was symptomatic of a spreading web of vile behaviour. Anna always agreed with Dostoyevsky that you don’t get at the truth through lies and trickery, even as a temporary expedient, as our recent history has shown.
We had a stint working as a husband-and-wife team. Anna was the first journalist in Russia to cover the topic of totalitarian sects and got hold of a unique video. I followed her with a program in the Politburo series on the same subject. We both came to the dispiriting conclusion that the Russian state was the biggest sect of all, using the people’s own money to brainwash it. Very few were immune to the influence of all this garbage. We argued a lot. The Russian “market” was another name for individual greed. She was certain that greed could be managed, and that human beings were an end in themselves. They could be independent, creative units. I believed the individual could always be controlled. The genetic memory of a slave was in you whether you had a flashing light on top of your prestigious car and a bodyguard or whether you were a down-and-out on the status scrapheap. Anna was furious but had to agree. She had studied the experience of totalitarian sects only too closely. By definition, however, newspaper journalists delve deeper into their topics than television reporters, so I didn’t always win.
Lazy celebrity TV presenters would often plagiarise her texts without even bothering to paraphrase them. Our home was a press room with an engrossing weekly review of the news programs, which we compared against her articles.
Anna came with me when I next decided to visit my beloved Kamchatka Province. We worked in parallel, examining the cheerless results of privatisation. She flew back on her birthday. Local friends laid on a birthday party at the airport before she flew out and wished her a happy longest birthday she would have in her life as she flew westward with the sun.
She sometimes seemed to move faster than the clock. In August 1991 our whole family was in Svetlogorsk. In the evenings we drank with Yury Shevchuk. He sang his new songs for us. In the mornings we tried to persuade the women to join a new party called the Hungovers. Anna invented a title for our top party functionary, “The Seventh Day Hungover.” The holiday passed lightheartedly. On August 17 the season was to reopen at the Lenkom Theatre with Grigoriy Gorin’s Prayer of Remembrance, in the last scene of which our son Ilya played the violin. I flew back to Moscow with Ilya only for us to find ourselves in the middle of the anti-Gorbachev putsch. I was relieved that Anna and our daughter Vera were far away, and that Ilya was staying with Anna’s parents, out of harm’s way. A day later I was astonished to hear from her parents that she was already in Moscow and preparing to take to the barricades in defence of democracy. Everywhere you heard Shevchuk’s “Last Autumn.” It proved not to be the last autumn, but only the beginning of things going wrong. Everything was about to become a business: management of the state, war, morality, elections, medicine, education. The real “Seventh Day Hungovers,” the secret policemen, were only getting started in the cellars of Moscow’s White House.
Two years passed and after another putsch I was asked to come to the Ministry by a certain highly placed official. The Minister himself came outside the building, gave me my documents, and warned, “Take care. Did you speak out against the shelling of the White House? Everything is just beginning.” Back home I tried to persuade Anna to take out the American citizenship she was entitled to, because she was born there. She strongly objected to my suggestion. She hadn’t much liked America after our trip there in 1991, but agreed to it after our daughter came home from school with the news that some of her friends were no longer talking to her. Society had split into people who were on side, and the others who weren’t. It was only later that emotions cooled, people started using their brains again and realized they had been taken for a ride. I was no longer allowed to broadcast. Anna raged but, as tends to happen in Russia, our telephone rang less frequently. I tried to explain to the children that their surname might cause them problems. They didn’t see that, and on the contrary were rather proud of the situation. They saw the point later, the first time they ran up against “on side” cops. When they casually mentioned it to their mother, she was furious.
In my worst nightmare I could never have imagined that the citizenship of the body in the coffin would be held against Anna by our “patriots,” and used as a frightener by the “sovereign Russia” brigade. Her books, like the Unpublished Letters of Marina Tsetayeva all those years ago, are well known in the civilised world but not to be found on the shelves of Russian bookshops.
The main investor, receiver and allocator of favors in Russia is once again that well guarded fortress in the center of Moscow. Anna tells me how the fat cats fight for the right to a flashing light on their car, and how, if they decide to give it up, they make a major “democratic” fuss about their magnanimity. Celebrity brains do not function until hit over the head by a revived special operations militiaman.
Our marriage lasted 21 years. I managed to lose. We separated. Life under a permanent storm front came to an end. We separated but did not divorce, in order that our colleagues who work to get money from the bosses should not be given a news break. There were plenty of enemies. They didn’t often sue because they knew what she wrote was the truth, but they pelted her with filth.
She was invited to a forum in Eilat devoted to the end of the century. It was our last tour. I accompanied her. In the bus our guide, an ex-Soviet, insisted that Judas was only acting his part in a play which had already been written. “That’s rich!” Anna said, and laughed. We didn’t take him to task.
We travelled through the Holy Land. Orthodox Christmas. Rain in Bethlehem. Anna and I stood next to the Temple. Everybody was pushed aside. Moscow cars with flashing lights. Did I imagine it? We squeezed into the building and there, sure enough, sitting in chairs in the middle of the Temple as if they were in a theatre, were Yeltsin, Chubais and Arafat. The service was being played out in front of them like a performance. Had they come to beg forgiveness for their sins? It was totally monstrous. Horrified, we came out and heard in the repulsive drizzle a sweet voice. In the square we were confronted by another extraordinary sight. From our youth, like the brave little tin soldier, a wet Demis Roussos was rushing about on a stage in the almost deserted square. Not a single New Russian to be seen, only a few Israelis, and nobody was collecting cash, as they would be in Russia. “Goodbye, my love, goodbye.” “He’s taking the piss,” Anna whispered. In the darkness we were surrounded by émigrés under umbrellas who wanted to ask us about perestroika.
It would have been good just to talk without them, and not about perestroika. We had to work on the perestroika of our family relations. We found it just as difficult to get unused to each other as to put up with each other in the same flat.
A few days later, the intimate meeting again in the church, at the funeral service, the dissipating gossamer of incense with its hint of bitterness. The priest pronounced the last word. I suddenly had the feeling that she was arguing with me again, and such a wretched emotion came over me that, as I remembered the tears I had caused this woman to shed, I couldn’t proceed to the coffin to go through the motions of a helpful ritual. Whether it was the diary of the brave little tin soldier, or Gavroche going his own way and forced to spend nights in the ruined bowels of a monumental elephant … An independent creative unit. Tsvetayeva’s noose. In the evening I remembered the first amazing words of the prayer, “Make me an instrument of your peace.” Hers was my surname; how significant it was that I had taught the words of that prayer to a schoolgirl.
MLAN (Masha–Lena–Anna): this remarkable association lasted long enough to celebrate its fortieth anniversary, but came to an end on October 7, 2006. The bullets fired from a Makarov pistol hit their target, the heart of the association, Anya.
We had been friends since childhood, and it was a friendship not directed against anybody else, as seems often to be the case nowadays: we just enjoyed each other’s company and all that went with that. Friendship, especially if it lasts for many years, is a living organism. Like molecules in a cell, we were sometimes drawn to each other, sometimes repelled. Sometimes we existed quite autonomously, before again drawing close. We were forever asking Anna to write about us because so many interesting things happened; life threw up plots which the scriptwriters of soap operas might have envied. She did not take the suggestion seriously, and said she would think about it when she was old and sitting at home with her grandchildren. During the last decade, however, she never had time to sit anywhere. She periodically disappeared from our cosy, well-ordered life in the center of Moscow and went back again and again to a different, terrifying life where a war was being fought, people were dying, a life of pain and suffering. She flew there to give help and hope, to rescue people and restore the truth. Protecting the peace of our families, we instinctively avoided letting that war into our hearts. We told her she only lived once, that she should think about her children and parents, that she shouldn’t take such risks. Anna didn’t even try to argue with us. She considered herself duty bound to relieve the pain of others. In the traditional photographs taken during our happy reunions in recent years, her eyes are always sad. That other life never completely freed her to return to our life in Moscow.
Anna was absolutely convinced of the rightness of her choice to fight for justice, and to defend the weak and the wronged. It is the way saints live but, as we know from history, their lives are unfortunately often short. She cannot write any more now. Now it is our turn to write about her.
The idea of forming our association came to us one time when, joining hands, we jumped off a garage roof into a deep snowdrift. Alas, I doubt there are any garage owners left who are so kindly disposed towards children. A few months before we had all been new pupils in Class 1B. We were all born leaders and a happy childhood intuition must have suggested to us that it would be better to join forces, to form a nucleus which would attract our classmates, rather than fight it out with each other to be the leader of this new pack. We were minded to do good, having been brought up on the edifying novellas of Valentina Oseyeva and Arkadiy Gaidar, and tales about heroic Young Pioneers.
Our first good deed was to help the class dunce, a boy called Volodya, to revise for a series of class tests and to improve dramatically on his disgraceful marks. We gathered at Anna’s. She proposed an original incentive: for every mistake he made in the maths examples Volodya would have to eat several sugared cranberry sweets. Soon the sweets were all gone, but the mistakes persisted. Volodya did not come to school the next day. Sweet things disagreed with him and he came out in a terrible rash which took ages to clear up.
Our inclination to do good deeds evolved into a determination to catch criminals. Every day as we walked to school we passed a stand in the street which had photographs of people wanted for questioning by the militia. This inspired us to new feats. For several days we followed close on the heels of a suspicious person who evidently lived somewhere nearby. Perhaps he really did have a criminal past. At all events, he spent most of the day in the company of the local alcoholics or just hanging around aimlessly. We were convinced that we had detected a terrible saboteur and that the Motherland would be proud of us. We were never to forget the militiamen seating us in a motorbike sidecar, and with eyes ablaze and our Pioneer neckerchiefs flying in the wind we were driven round the courtyards in search of our suspect. We do not know to this day what the militia talked to him about, but for years after that our hypothetical criminal crossed to the other side of the road whenever he saw us.
We were good at our schoolwork, always organised the class concert, edited the wall newspaper, bought presents for the boys on February 23, for Soviet Army Day, and took part in amateur dramatics and dancing. We lived our lives to disconcert the foe and make our mothers proud of us. Anna was outstandingly good in every subject for the entire 10 years. Before tests and essays, her classmates would push and shove to sit as close to her desk as possible, which ensured a good mark. If Anna came into the class in the morning and said she hadn’t managed to do the homework, we knew for a fact that it was impossible. She was also successfully studying music, and had far less free time than her classmates for playing outside. From childhood she knew the meaning of discipline and hard work.
In her teens qualities became evident which were to be fundamental to her personality. She was physically incapable of condoning unfairness. She acknowledged no absolute authorities, and always told the truth to people’s faces, whatever the consequences. Anna was perfectly capable of throwing down her exercise book on the teacher’s desk if she considered he had marked her unfairly. She even stood up to the headmaster, who the teachers themselves were afraid of, if she felt another pupil had been treated unfairly. She was a maximalist. When she argued her cheeks would become livid, and she could be very abrupt. “Ostap has got the bit between his teeth,” we would joke, remembering the manic hero of Ilf and Petrov’s Twelve Chairs. At first we found her unyielding nature difficult, but later learned to ignore it and tried not to bring her to boiling point, either giving way in arguments or changing the subject. We kept that habit going in later life.
Soon our friend’s civic activism moved up a gear. Anna began doubting the fairness of “developed socialism,” which is how society in the Brezhnev years was characterised. She was extremely sensitive to the sham values underlying it. We were baffled as to why she wanted to change the rules, and not just live in accordance with them like other people. It was obviously a lost cause, but she genuinely could not understand our indifference and lack of desire to improve society. Her first newspaper reporting was challenging and topical. She saw the main reason for working as a journalist as being to put right the situation she was describing, to identify and excoriate those responsible.
We grew up. Anna was the first to marry and the first to become a mother, while she was still very young. Her parents were upset that she had encumbered herself with all the trials of family life at such an early age. I will never forget her coming for a break at my dacha, holding her three-year-old son by the hand, with her year-old daughter in her arms, and simultaneously managing a folding pushchair, a potty, changes of clothing, baby food and books. All this she coped with without a car, travelling first by Metro and bus, then on the suburban train, and finally making it to the dacha on foot. It was not something every young mother could have undertaken, but Anna was never afraid of difficulties. In order to save up to buy a piano for the children, she took a second job as a cleaner at a studio on the ground floor of her apartment block. Soon a vintage instrument was bought which served not only for making music, but also as a bookshelf, a writing desk, an ironing board, and as a stand for the parrot’s cage. In those days beginning journalists lived very modestly indeed. Preparing endless breakfasts, lunches and dinners; doing the laundry and tidying up; teaching the children music, drawing and general knowledge, Anna would periodically exclaim, “I am an independent creative unit.” In fact, there was very little time for creativity, and she was able to write only at night after the children had been put to bed and the housework done.
We always joked that the more difficult her life became, the better she looked. She was naturally good-looking, and seemed to confirm the male chauvinist maxim that “hardship makes women prettier.” She was never stumped for an answer, able in an instant to summon up her will, focus herself like a sportswoman preparing for a jump, and fling herself into battle against the latest vicissitude.
Throughout her life Anna made few demands on her surroundings. She had neither the time nor the money to furnish her new flat on Lesnaya Street, an address which has now unhappily become so famous. She dressed tastefully but simply and was uninterested in jewellery or expensive clothes. The handle of her favorite black bag, which went along on her numerous assignments in Chechnya, was bound round with sticking plaster, and immense efforts were needed to persuade her to buy a new one. There was a hole of unknown origin in the side of her beloved Zhiguli, but she did not want to buy a new car. She liked learning to cook new dishes and would scrupulously, step by step, carry out all the instructions in a recipe. Unfortunately, she had no time and could not be bothered cooking for herself. The only foods which were invariably to be found in her home were honey, cheese, rolls and tea.
We spent the whole of our lives within sight of each other, but it will remain a mystery to us how Anna managed to exist in two parallel worlds: in our familiar life, which is the life most women live, and in the life of an investigative journalist, writing mostly about politically sensitive matters, about society’s imperfections, as responsive to the pain of others as to her own, making every effort to improve the lot of at least one person. In her “civilian” life Anna devoted a lot of time to her children and was a real friend and adviser to them. She often dropped in for a chat, and we would sit in the kitchen, drinking endless cups of tea and talking about everything in the world, but trying to avoid mentioning that other life. Anna was a marvellous conversationalist. She could tell a story vividly, and was an attentive listener. You could always turn to her for help. When my son was born she left the guests who had come to her birthday party to run over to the maternity hospital and leave me a note of congratulations. (It was before the era of mobile phones.) Anna could not bear irresolution and spinelessness. She greatly valued personal freedom. She was a complex person, but we always knew that we were living with an icon.
Anya was … It is impossible to become reconciled to that past tense. The pain of loss is something we have yet to come to terms with. For now it seems that Anna has again flown out on an assignment, and that soon our answering machine will pass on her favorite message, “Hello, this is Anya Politkovskaya. I live just across the road. Call me.”
Unfortunately, there is no reaching her now by phone, but she is constantly in our thoughts. We miss you so much, Anna.
We were not close friends, but when we met we talked at great length, usually after Anna returned from an assignment. She would tell me about the people she was describing at that moment. She spoke of them in great detail but very unemotionally.
Her office was a reception room for the whole of Russia, and there was invariably some person in trouble sitting there. Anna would listen to them for hours, questioning them, rescuing them from difficulties, giving them back their life. In Novaya gazeta’s office I only ever saw her working, never just drinking coffee in the bar or chatting idly.
Anna was a pure, honest and fearless journalist, absolutely selfless and original. In the seven years she worked for Novaya gazeta she published more than 500 articles, and of these more than 40 resulted in criminal charges being brought or trials reviewed.
Her words had a different specific gravity from even the very best words in the very best order. They cast a shadow, probably because they had the power to redeem or expose. Mostly, they redeemed, despite her many critical articles, because Anna always remembered who she was writing for and what she was writing about. She never wrote just for the sake of it.
She was a journalist with raw nerves, for whom nothing was simple or easy – everything was serious and responsible. She was a very clear and intelligible journalist, never picking a fight for the sake of it. Rather, she had a tragic awareness that it was unavoidable. Anna wrote a lot about Chechnya, but her real concern was just ordinary people and the lives they were living. The attitude towards Chechens in our beloved Fatherland has long been not even to regard them as cattle (since cattle are sentient beings), but as matter, as inanimate objects. Many came to accept this attitude.
The poet Naum Korzhavin has written, “Is the law really an insane competition to see who can sacrifice whom for the good of the many?”Such a competition was indeed organised in Russia in the Stalin era, and it was a defilement. It is exactly what Pasternak describes: “I felt affinity with the poor … but have been spoiled since the times were hexed and sorrow came to be reviled, and philistines and optimists perplexed.” “Making optimists perplexed” refers to those who are invariably, unquestioningly cheerful in the face of other people’s misery, who have no problem with living like that. They believe that living like that means they are in tune with the times, although even the most complex and intriguing of us are very, very ordinary in the eyes of God.
Anna never made a thing of her own exceptionalness, never made a thing about remaining true to herself. She was a sincere person, without cheap sentimentality, without touching sweetness, but she simply would not accept the idea that there might be people for whom you could feel no pity, who were expendable. When, in the name of the People, the state authorities were murdering people, Anna was not with the crowd who silently looked away. Her resistance to evil took the form of frankness. She openly hated evil and openly loved good. She never, ever came to terms with cannibals.
She was pained that the genuine links between people had been destroyed, that people were being divided according to nationality, or into the rich and the poor.
Anna carried on her shoulders and within herself a burden beyond the strength of even hundreds of journalists. Life made her resolute, and taught her to work ably and effectively, and only on behalf of and alongside ordinary people, the most vulnerable and the most forgotten.
She was no idol for the intelligentsia, and neither did she idolise the intelligentsia. That ordinary people living ordinary lives had no place in the New Russian life of the wealthy Anna blamed not only on the state authorities, but on all those “who only needed to promote solidarity.” Even simple solidarity is something almost all the ordinary people have yet to see from the intelligentsia. The “common” people have been overlooked, they are “beyond the bounds of our sympathy,” as Korzhavin once crisply put it.
Anna fought against the demagogy of social justice. She knew that justice is not something you introduce or attain: justice has to be worked on. She worked on it, sometimes completely alone. (“I wriggle between the elites of the sated and the scrubbed, pushing my own line and trying not to become part of any of them.”)
Anna worked inside her own territory, one she had conquered. She was apart from everyone else, but she sought understanding, and failing that, then at least partial understanding.
She didn’t try to shout anyone down, she merely invited people to hear and see each other. She tried desperately to find a modicum of enduring respect in society for the public and the personal.
Anna was a very Russian journalist. Today the pseudo-patriots splutter venomously about her American citizenship and cannot abide the fact that she was the daughter of diplomats and was born in America. Well, good luck to them. I will say only that Anna loved Russia. Russia was her life, and patriotism is love, not national egotism or a means of self-assertion. When Anna was invited to emigrate, she said, “Novaya gazeta still needs me.”
She once told me about a brief note she had published. A family lived in Chechnya. One night people in uniform came and took away their 16-year-old son. The parents searched for him for a long time but did not find him. Then their house was bombed and they fled. They wandered through Central Russia, living in cellars. They had nothing left, not even their family photographs.
One day they came to Anna to tell her about their son, what kind of boy he was, what he liked, what books he read, the kind of smile he had.
Anna wrote about all that. Later they came to see her again, to thank her. The only thing they had left of their son was Anna’s note in the newspaper, and now it hangs on their wall behind glass in a picture frame. “It’s important to have something to hold on to, even if it is only in newsprint,” his parents told her.
She did more than her duty.
Thousands of people have died in Chechnya in extra-judicial killings. Not in battle: many of those killed had no involvement at all with the resistance fighters.
The victims of Major Lapin and his accomplices from the Khanty-Mansiysk Combined Militia Unit, assigned to the October District Interior Affairs Office in Grozny, died under torture; the GRU agents in Captain Ulman’s gang shot and burned teachers from the Chechen village of Dai; Colonel Budanov, the Commanding Officer of 160 Tank Regiment, raped and murdered a 17-year-old Chechen girl.
The criminal charges brought against these scum in uniform were brought not as a result of facts revealed in Anna Politkovskaya’s publications, but mainly as a result of the publicity she gave them by writing about them in Novaya gazeta. I have no doubt that, given the chance, these Lapins, Budanovs and Ulmans, and also some of their supporters, might well have settled scores with Anna Politkovskaya. Only, however, if they had the opportunity, and I do not believe that such an opportunity presented itself. Nevertheless, these possibilities, even though they have been looked at to some extent by Novaya gazeta’s inquiry, should not be dismissed.
Anna wrote about torture, murder, and abductions in Chechnya. These monstrous deeds were perpetrated by representatives of all the security agencies: the Interior Ministry, the FSB, the Central Intelligence Directorate (GRU), and also the Kadyrovites, Baisarovites (Movladi Baisarov’s men were operationally under the command of the FSB), the Yamadayevites (Suleyman Yamadayev is the Commander of the East Special Operations Battalion of the Central Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defence, the Kakievites (Said-Mahomed Kakiev is the Commander of the West Battalion), and resistance fighters.
Moreover, in order to divert suspicion from themselves, any of these organizations might employ the methods of their rivals and even enemies. All these kidnappers and murderers have so covered their tracks and so mimicked one another that sometimes they themselves could not tell who had abducted or murdered a particular person.
Sometimes, however, Anna’s revelations were completely exclusive and presented, moreover, in the form of brilliant journalism. They discredited newly proclaimed “Heroes of Russia,” and struck one living “Hero,” Ramzan Kadyrov, who was making good money through criminal business dealings out of the memory of that dead “Hero,” his deified dad, hitting him, as they say, not on the eyebrow but smack in the eye.
Until May 9, 2004 the Kadyrov family’s opportunities for self-enrichment were relatively limited. In those days Ramzan’s immediate entourage drove around not in Mercedes and Ferraris, as they do today, but in far more modest Zhiguli-99s and Zhiguli-10s.
After the death of Akhmat-hadji Kadyrov, his son Ramzan found he had considerably greater scope. In the first place, he was immediately promoted to the position of First Deputy Prime Minister, in effect crushing the Prime Minister, Sergey Abramov. In the second place, he set up the Akhmat-hadji Kadyrov Foundation, an organization for the laundering and uninhibited exploitation of resources amounting to many millions of dollars. Kadyrov Junior and his henchmen levied tribute on the entire population of Chechnya, from the humblest toilet cleaner to the highest state officials, including ministers, rank and file officers of the militia, and senior officers of the Chechen Interior Ministry.
In her article, “Ramzan Kadyrov, the Pride of Chechnya” (Novaya gazeta, No. 42, June 5, 2006), Anna proved that the A. Kadyrov Foundation obtained its funds in the main by extortion from the Chechen people. Anybody who refused to pay up was, at best, sacked. As a result of his legalised extortion racket, Kadyrov Junior became the richest man in Chechnya. He and his retinue now drive around in flashy foreign cars, build themselves palaces in Chechnya and beyond its borders, and buy expensive flats in Moscow.
Anna explained how journalists working on Kadyrov’s image were generating a myth in Chechnya to the effect that the Republic’s restoration was taking place at the expense of Ramzan Kadyrov personally and of his Foundation. She showed that of 27 projects, only six were being financed by non-budgetary resources. The other projects, amounting to billions, were being financed from the budget of the Russian Federation.
Having in spring 2000 become Prime Minister in the Chechen government, Ramzan Kadyrov was sucking at the breasts of two mothers, the Russian federal budget and his own Foundation’s proceeds of crime.
Describing the Chechen beauty competition held at the Foundation’s expense, Anna wrote, “After the jury had announced the name of the winner and many girls had been given cars, there was a celebratory dinner in a Gudermes restaurant. Kadyrov Junior and several dozen bodyguards arrived. The winners were commanded to dance for him and the others and, as the dancing continued, Kadyrov Junior ordered bodyguards who were not dancing to throw banknotes at the young ladies, hundred-dollar and thousand-rouble banknotes […]
“Years will pass, all things will pass, and people will have no wish to recall any detail of these Hundred Days with their oaths of loyalty to the Kadyrov cause. But what of the girls who in May 2006 crawled around on that restaurant floor? What of the young journalists who put their signatures to a publication titled ‘Kadyrov, the Peacemaker,’ at a time when hundreds of people had been tortured to death in Tsentoroy? How will they live with themselves? I cannot imagine.”
The mafia does not forgive such exposés.
I remember Anna and I were talking about the heroes of our times. There had just been two tragic incidents: Private Andrey Sychev had been brutally mutilated in the Army, and another 20-year-old in Moscow, Alexander Koptsev, had himself done the mutilating when he took a knife into a synagogue and wounded those at prayer. Anna very scrupulously investigated the circumstances of the first tragedy, and I examined the highly dramatic fate of the second young man. Together we identified a phenomenon: she told me that money was being sent from different parts of the country to the mother of Private Sychev, and I told her that money was also being sent to the mother of Koptsev. She was extremely interested by this twist. People who knew her well remember her ability to home in on the essence of her topics, to empathise her way into them. You could almost feel it physically. Her whole being leaning forward, slightly hunched, one hand propping up her chin and the other at her brow like the peak of a cap – that is how she looked as she sat at her desk, thinking and concentrating.
“So those are the new heroes Russia has chosen,” she said.
“I suppose so,” I agreed. “If you discount the glitz, the gossip column celebrities, the show business personalities, then in effect we are left with just these two boys, symbolising two of Russia’s horrors: the reign of the ‘grandads’ in the Army, and xenophobia. The popular mind seems to have no room for any other heroes.”
Anna thought for a moment, and then said abruptly, “In other words, we have none.”
I had to agree.
I also remember saying to her that nowadays no sensation lasted more than three days. She gestured dismissively, “They don’t even last a day.”
A certain solemn person said to me today, “Do you mean to say that you told Anna Politkovskaya, whose work was the most long-lasting sensation of recent history, who was herself a symbol of free, independent journalism and unquestionably a heroine, that there couldn’t be any long-lasting sensations? You said that the only heroes can be people who evoke either pity or aggression? You said that to a saint after whom streets will be named?” Well, actually, yes.
These words were simply inapplicable to her in life. Depending on her mood she would either have burst out laughing in the face of anybody who spoke so pompously about her, or would turn away, having lost all interest in them.
I knew what she had achieved, I knew about the bronze presentation cases from award ceremonies, and I knew their recipient had never opened them. She not only never wore the mantle of the fine words which had been said about her, she didn’t even try it on because that was not her style.
Of course I knew who I was talking to. I wasn’t blind. I had seen the stream of people from every part of Russia coming to her, seeing in her their last hope of justice. I understood what she was doing, the risk she was constantly running. But as often happens, when you’re in the middle of a professional conversation, you can’t start viewing the person you are talking to as an icon, the more so when the icon herself never switches on her canonised look. You are talking to a colleague on a straightforward, everyday, down-to-earth, work level. I was just sitting too close to her, our desks side by side, for seven years.
I remember her coming back after receiving all sorts of amazingly prestigious awards. There was no celebration, no joy, only disappointment. There she was sitting, holding her column very close in front of her and reading out her own text. I came in and said in passing, “Anna, congratulations. That’s super.”
“But they don’t want to understand anything. They won’t listen! They are completely uninterested. It’s not super, Galya.”
“But it’s a victory?”
“No!”
And at first I didn’t understand. Why would they hand out these awards, how could they select and assess if they didn’t want to understand? OK, perhaps it wasn’t a victory, but surely an award was at least a demonstration of support?
“Yes, but it is support for a journalist and not for what he or she is doing. They not only don’t want to get involved in helping with what I’m doing, they don’t even want to try to understand it!”
If it had been anyone else, I would have suspected they were striking a pose, but the woman sitting there and saying this was so disillusioned, so weary, her expectations so clearly disappointed. The individuals on whom people’s fates depended, who might have brought about a breakthrough in the situation, didn’t want to lift a finger to help. It wasn’t just Russia, it was the world. It just wanted to buy her off.
She was being left alone with a burden she could hardly bear. She had been fêted and blessed on her way, and in the process they had psychologically washed their hands of her. That was how I understood the situation.
But there were other people, a whole pack of them within Russia, who seemed to be on her side. I’m not talking about those who hated Anna – their position was clear enough and what more can one say about them? I’m not even talking about those who did not like her, because that too is not all that important. There were others, though, who didn’t love her enough. They were agitated every time something terrible happened to her, when she was taken prisoner in Chechnya, when she was poisoned on her way to Beslan. Yes, they were upset, but when everything worked out all right, they didn’t think it had been that big a deal. They were sort of beside her, and this gave them the right to snipe at her. They stood shoulder to shoulder with her, but in a casual sort of way, and looked on at someone who had assumed a burden which, without exaggeration, would have had a thousand people groaning under its weight. And they decided it wasn’t that big a deal.
“It is as if she is living in a mortuary,” one very well-known spin doctor informed me one time. “A normal person cannot be exposed to a constant torrent of deaths and describe it endlessly.”
“A normal person cannot help feeling that in front of their eyes part of the country is being turned into a mortuary and cannot help wanting to do their utmost to hinder it. Even less can they adapt so completely to being in a mortuary that they wander in eating cake,” I told him. “And this really is an endless topic. Who is more normal, the person who cries out in pain, or the person who pretends there’s no problem? ‘Ooh, you were quite right to stamp on my foot. It doesn’t hurt a bit, I’m enjoying it! Please go ahead and stamp on my other foot too, because …’ ” Well, because that way, even though you are powerless, you can still seem to be in control.
But you aren’t in control, and it isn’t normal! The world is topsy-turvy and, hanging down head first, you so much want to be included in the society of morally decent people. It wouldn’t be decent to hate Anna, but you can not love her quite enough without losing face. Something is nevertheless hiding in there behind that “not quite enough,” perhaps the way people feel about themselves, a feeling deep inside that the life they are living in Russian society in the guise of decent people is not close enough to really being alive. They tried so hard to live as good people, but somehow they weren’t really; while once upon a time Anna did, and was, and that was not a fairy tale.
I remember once we were discussing some film with a lot of parts, something about special operations. It was one of those conversations fitted in while we were both busy with something else. We were checking through something on our computers and in the process exchanging comments about how disgusting this kind of false romanticisation was, abundantly spiced with racism and violence. We were going through examples which I no longer remember, and wondered what the people who created such a product would get out of it.
“Well nothing, I suppose, except a lot of money and some prizes,” I said, not taking my eyes off the monitor.
“They will bring shame on themselves,” Anna said with such conviction that I turned round and looked at her, uncertainly and with a half-smile at first: what was this? Did she really mean it?
“They will bring shame on themselves!” she repeated heatedly.
She had just been very decently brought up; that was the whole explanation. Of course, we all had explained to us when we were little what was good and what was bad. Everybody knows that. It’s just that as we grow up, we tend to drop the heavy stuff, some to a greater and some to a lesser extent. Some unload it on to the scrap heap, others just relegate it to the cellar or the attic of their consciousness, because it is difficult to live wearing these penitential chains of morality, especially when most people have long ago chosen the easy way. In any case, there are attributes of “merit” – like cynicism, or scepticism, or that sure-fire winner, wit – which hardly weigh anything at all. With wit you are received into the society of morally decent people, you turn a caustic phrase and, even if there is no action behind your words, the topic is closed. You are sharp. You are cool.
The quandary was formulated long ago: “To Be or To Seem?” If you choose the latter, you will live long. Whereas Anna chose the former and has been murdered.
I remember how I first heard the news, and to this day it is as if I have a foreign body lodged in my brain: “Anna has been killed.” It is as if a red streamer flares up in my mind, and hurts, and gives me no peace, and cuts into me and oppresses me. “Anna has been killed.” “They have killed Anna.” “Anna …” It was exactly as if a fire had engulfed a virtual space needed simply to take the fact in. I remember those first hours, our friends ashen faced, the businesslike investigators, the television cameras. While you are answering their questions, you feel you are going around with a watering can, putting things out, trying to rescue what has not already been burned to a cinder, some features. You move the markers they are already putting down in a way that makes you rise up in revulsion and shout “No!” You say, “What are you talking about? What sort of “iron lady” was she? You haven’t even read her! “Indefatigable soldier” – who are you talking about? Anna? For heaven’s sake, the minute she came into the office she could tell me what perfume I was wearing. What kind of bloody soldier does that? She dressed elegantly, stylishly. She was an amazingly devoted mother to her children.”
Our children grew up together not in front of our eyes but because we talked about them. When you sit next to someone in a small room for seven years, you know about every boil, every joy and torment, all the enthusiasms and achievements of your colleague’s children, and she knows all about yours.
Anna treated her children with such care and respect, and such a reserved tenderness came into her voice. You might not have heard her say their names, but you could tell immediately from her tone of voice that she was talking to one of them. There was so much pain when things were not going well, and so much delight and pride when there was cause for celebration. “Galya, my son is now earning more than I do!”
Her tone was light, as if to say, “There, we’ve lived to see the day!” But the exclamation marks were dancing in her eyes: “I have lived to see my son completely grown up. I don’t need to worry about him now. Everything is going well!”
And now, here we are.
I remember how much she loved coffee, and brought a coffee-maker to work. After she was poisoned on the way to Beslan she wasn’t allowed to eat or drink anything she liked. She seemed to be sustained by air and work. I don’t believe that people suddenly become mortal. There’s nothing sudden about it. We just find it easier to believe that. If someone isn’t dead then everything must be pretty much OK. We had used up all our reserves of concern for her, and that’s always the way: as soon as you stop worrying, something bad happens.
She was edgy and run-down, and frequently in tears, but it was amazingly easy to comfort her. A long time ago I stumbled upon a method and thereafter used it shamelessly. She could be comforted like a child by distracting her attention. It was useless to start arguing with her or giving her advice when she was in that kind of state. You needed to hear her out, and then as if quite randomly tell her something amusing. The tears would still be flowing, but already there was a smile, so open, so genuine. And then that infectious laugh. Everybody who knew her remembers how she could laugh.
Anna was very much alive, a real human being.
Anna was? I remember the phrase, “He is a coward. He will kill someone if he is afraid of them.” If she hated someone’s acts she brought them out into the light, to be judged. They, furtively, sneaking along a wall, inside a lift, killed Anna.
I’m really not that interested in what happens to those cowards, I know it already. I believe the theory that we live several lives and I read an elaboration, I don’t remember where, but it very much appealed to me. It was to the effect that in this life conscience makes things awkward for us. That’s true, isn’t it? It causes a lot of trouble. It’s at the root of all our problems. It’s like a hermit’s chains, why deny it? In fact it really doesn’t seem to serve any useful purpose. But if we imagine that a mother’s womb is a different world in which the human embryo lives, and we know that it lives there for a long time with its little hands and feet, we can equally well ask: what does he need them for, in that life? They just get in the way. They don’t serve any purpose. It’s completely incomprehensible what they are for until the moment of birth, but if then you were born without them, it would be a disaster. You would be a cripple. In just the same way, perhaps, for us earth-bound embryos, conscience is an organ of that kind.
Anna has been born into that different world completely normal and perfect.
Her killers are heading the same way, and they will be monsters.
I remember …
Van Gogh the bloodhound joined the Politkovskaya family just over two years ago. The puppy had problems, and his need was not so much for food and injections (well, not only that), as for selfless and all-enveloping love. He wallowed in love, and gave as good as he got to his owners.
Anna related this extraordinary doggy history, which says no less about her as a journalist and a human being than her reports and investigations, in the pilot color issue of Novaya gazeta in September 2005. We reprinted the article (Novaya gazeta, No. 77, “A Sick Dog in a Big City”) two days after the tragedy at Lesnaya Street. Readers responded with a barrage of phone calls asking what had happened to van Gogh. At our request, Anna Politkovskaya’s daughter Vera updates us on van Gogh:
Van Gogh is fine. His mood seems to have returned to normal. At first, of course, he appeared rather lost, but he is feeling much better now. For the first week after October 7 it was as if he was waiting for someone. He was off his food and didn’t play with his toys. Anybody with a dog will recognise the symptoms.
Now van Gogh is leading a normal doggy life. We take him to the vet regularly, but he is healthy now and does not need special treatment. My mother simply rescued him from a dire situation when he was a puppy. We despaired and did not know what to do, but she nursed him back to health and now he is over those problems and behaves quite normally, except that he is still afraid of people, especially men.
Van Gogh is living with us and enjoys all the blessings of a normal life. He and I have been friends for a long time: when my mother was away on assignments, she left me in charge of van Gogh, so we have loved each other for years. Nobody knew him better than Mother and I.
Van Gogh shows no signs of giving up old habits. You can say goodbye to any boots or shoes left unattended in the hallway. His preference is for leather shoes but recently, in the absence of such delicacies, he chewed his favorite toy to pieces. It is beyond repair. He used to bring it to everyone who came into the house if he wasn’t afraid of them. It was his traditional way of showing he trusted someone, and since traditions should be respected we will find him a replacement toy.
He has a trainer who helps us when some particular aspect of his upbringing is beyond us, but we no longer have the earlier problems with him. He is a bloodhound, of course, a hunting dog, but two years ago we bought a puppy with the sole aim of having a friend living in our family.
January. Moscow. Golden Pen Prize of the Russian Union of Journalists for reports on the struggle against corruption.
January. Moscow. “Journalists Against Corruption” Prize, Russian Union of Journalists with support from the Soros Foundation.
Special prize of the Russian Union of Journalists, “A Good Deed and a Kind Heart.” For aid to an old people’s home in Grozny. During bombing Anna managed to organise the evacuation of old and forgotten people to safe regions.
February. Moscow. Winner’s Certificate in the Golden Gong 2000 competition, with a bronze statuette of the goddess Iris. For a series of articles from Chechnya.
April. Washington. Inaugural winner of the Artyom Borovik Prize for Investigative Journalism, established in the USA by CBS and the Overseas Press Club and awarded by the Pulitzer Committee. For detailed chronicling of the Chechen War.
July. London. Global Award for Human Rights Journalism, Amnesty International’s highest award. For a series of reports on torture in Chechnya, and for many years of reporting from the Republic.
London. Most Courageous Defence of Free Expression Prize from Index on Censorship.
October. Los Angeles. Courage in Journalism Award of the International Women’s Media Foundation, and Crystal Bird symbolising freedom. [Awarded in absentia since Anna was obliged to return to Moscow in connection with the Nord-Ost hostage-taking.] For work in dangerous and difficult conditions and reporting on the war in Chechnya.
December. Moscow. Winner of the Andrey Sakharov Prize for Journalism as Action. For consistently defending the rights and freedoms of inhabitants of Chechnya and courage in exposing war crimes.
USA. Europe’s Heroes nomination by Time magazine.
February. Vienna. Prize for Journalism and Democracy of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. For courageous professional activity in support of human rights and freedom of the mass media, for publications on the state of human rights in Chechnya.
October. Berlin. Lettre Ulysses Award for the Art of Reportage, established by Lettre International magazine, the Aventis Foundation, and the Goethe Institute, for her book Tchétchénie, le déshonneur russe, published in France.
November. Darmstadt. Prize of the German PEN Center and Hermann Kesten Medal. For courageous reporting of events in Chechnya.
January. Stockholm. Olof Palme Prize, the Olof Palme Foundation. For courage and strength when reporting in difficult and dangerous circumstances, shared with Ludmila Alexeyeva and Sergey Kovalyov.
April. Leipzig. Prize for the Freedom and Future of the Media, Media Foundation of Sparkasse Leipzig. For her contribution to developing freedom of the press.
October. New York. Civil Courage Prize of the Northcote Parkinson Fund [now the Train Foundation]. For steadfast resistance to evil at great personal risk. [John Train is the father-in-law of American journalist Paul Klebnikov who was murdered in Moscow.]
October [posthumously]. Tiziano Terzani International Literary Prize. To mark the rare moral courage of Anna Politkovskaya, who paid with her life for criticising abuses of power.
December. Reporter of the Year, National Union of Italian Reporters, to Anna Politkovskaya who “died defending her right to bring the truth to the public, and people’s right to obtain truthful and free information.”
“Flouting the Law,” annual prize for journalism, awarded by the Open Russia Foundation.
For Valour, special award from the Artyom Borovik Prize committee.
Paris. UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize. “Anna Politkovskaya showed incredible courage and stubbornness in chronicling events in Chechnya after the whole world had given up on that conflict. Her dedication and fearless pursuit of the truth set the highest benchmark of journalism, not only for Russia but for the rest of the world. Indeed, Anna’s courage and commitment were so remarkable that we decided, for the first time, to award the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize posthumously.”
July. Washington, DC. John Aubuchon Freedom of the Press Award, the National Press Club. “Anna Politkovskaya, who never let death threats deter her from her remarkable reporting of the conflict in Chechnya, deserves to be remembered and honored for her courage and commitment to journalism.”
September. Washington, DC. Democracy Award to Spotlight Press Freedom, the National Endowment for Democracy. “Throughout her distinguished career as a Russian journalist, Anna was an outspoken advocate for human rights and an end to the devastating war in Chechnya.”
October 7. The first Anna Politkovskaya Award “to recognise women who are defending human rights in zones of war and conflict” was presented to Natalia Estemirova, “a close friend and colleague of Anna as well as a courageous human rights defender and freelance journalist, working in Chechnya for the human rights organization, Memorial.”
The Prize was instituted by Reach All Women in War, with the support of the Nobel Peace Prize winners Mairead Maguire, Betty Williams, Jody Williams, Shirin Ebadi, Wangari Maathai, Rigoberta Menchú Tum and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, as well as Elena Bonner, Tatiana Yankelevich, President Václav Havel, Harold Pinter, The Hon. Zbigniew Brzezinski, André Glucksmann, Gloria Steinem, Sergey Kovalyov, Terry Waite, CBE, Susan Sarandon, Alexei Simonov, Gillian Slovo, Bernard-Henri Lévy, Marek Edelman (the last surviving leader of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising), Elisabeth Rehn, Mariane Pearl, Adam Michnik, Asma Jahangir, Sister Helen Prejean, Ariel Dorfman, Vanessa Redgrave, Michael Cunningham, Eve Ensler, John Sweeney, Jonathan Schell, Noam Chomsky, Marina Litvinenko, Lyudmila Alekseeva, Desmond O’Malley, Anne Nivat, Victor Fainberg, Lord Frank Judd, Lord Nicolas Rea, Lord Anthony Giddens, Lord Nazir Ahmed, Baroness Shirley Williams, Baroness Molly Meacher, Sir Nigel Rodley, Professor Yakin Erturk, Anna’s sister, Elena Kudimova, Natasha Kandic, Caroline McCormick, Sister Marya Grathwohl, Heidi Bradner, Meglena Kuneva, Elizabeth Kostova, Esther Chavez, John D. Panitza, Dubravka Ugresic, Katrina van den Heuvel, Victor Navasky, Aidan White, Holly Near, Elizabeth Frank, and many others. Natalia Estemirova said,
“I am proud to receive an award in Anna’s name and honoring what Anna stood for. This award is extremely important for me and my colleagues, because it will enable us to continue our work for human rights in Chechnya and to further help the victims of this war.
“Freedom is not something given to a person. Freedom matters only if you feel free inside yourself. Anna was an absolutely free person.
“I would like to say to the people of Europe: please do not forget that Chechnya is in Europe. Please know that we are human beings like you, we want the same things as you do. And do not ignore our suffering in exchange for cheap gas and oil. There is no such thing as suffering that can be contained behind closed doors without eventually also affecting all of us. Please stand up to protect our lives and to restore our human dignity, because in doing so, you help preserve your own.”
[Natalia Estermirova was abducted and murdered in Chechnya on July 15, 2009.]
* Ivan Kivelidi (1949–95) was Chairman of the Board of Rosbiznesbank. On August 1, 1995 an exotic poison was put in the telephone receiver in his office, and he died in hospital on August 5.