Russia

Several hundred people rallied in central Moscow to mark the one-year anniversary of massive anti-government protests despite receiving a no-go for the event from city authorities. Arrests were made after some of the protesters refused to disperse.

 

The opposition says people came to honor political prisoners and to lay flowers on a monument which is located on Lubyanskaya Square.

 

Up to 40 people were detained, including opposition leaders Sergey Udaltsov and Aleksey Navalny, police said in the wake of the event. Police added only those were arrested who did not follow the law enforcers' orders. 

 

Photo: Blogger Aleksey Navalny (center) at the unauthorized freedom march on Lubyanskaya Square in Moscow.(RIA Novosti / Iliya Pitalev)

 

Police counted around 700 people rallying in Lubyanskaya Square.

Both Udaltsov and Navalny claim that their detention was unlawful, saying people just came to the square for a stroll. Udaltsov, the head of the Leftist Front movement, was detained by police while holding some kind of banner in contravention of legislation banning unsanctioned rallies in Moscow.

 

Later they were released without being charged.

Most of the arrests were made once the rally had thinned out and police ordered the remaining protesters to disperse. In response, several demonstrators attempted to form a human chain to hold their ground. Coming under a shower of insults, police advanced on those remaining on the square.

 

The unsanctioned rally was preceded by several rounds of negotiations between the opposition and authorities, but the sides could not reach an agreement on a march route. 

 

Last December tens of thousands took to the streets of Moscow to protest against the results of parliamentary elections which they claimed were fraudulent.  

 

The rally on Bolotnaya Square marked the beginning of  mass protests that continued throughout winter and spring, though the protest movement lost steam as time went on.

 

The seizure of 49 rare birds at Russian customs may stir up a diplomatic scandal between Russia and Saudi Arabia, as two members of the Saudi royal family are involved.

 

Russia’s environmental protection agency, Rosprirodnadzor, has refused to grant a re-export license to the princes for the export of 49 falcons to their home country.

 

Prince Mohammed bin Turki bin Saud Al-Kabeer and Prince Saud Bin Bader Bin Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Al-Saud took part in a falconry demo in Russia's Republic of Kalmykia, near the Caspian Sea. The princes displayed 49 birds – which they owned, an official customs document said.

 

But according to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), some of the birds were brought to Russia in a violation of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. The WWF claims that nine of the birds belong to a rare species and had been illegally smuggled from Russia on a prior occasion.

 

The Saudi princes actually smuggled sixteen birds into Russia, and 49 are now being illegally taken back, Oleg Mitvol of the Green Alliance, an environmentalist group, stated via his Twitter, raising further controversy in the Russian media.

 

Russian poachers are known to sell falcons for as little as  $1,000, while Saudi price tags for the birds can reach as high as $50,000, Mitvol told Life News.

 

One of the Saudi nationals involved is actually the country's undersecretary of the Foreign Ministry, Kommersant reports, noting the possibility that his name in the official document was misspelled.

 

Due to diplomatic immunity, the princes cannot be detained, but Russian custom officers are “trying to prevent the princes from flying off by every means possible,” a Rosprirodnadzor spokesman was quoted as saying by Life News.

 

The Russian Foreign Ministry has sent a note to the Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Moscow in connection with the incident, but embassy officials have given no comment on the issue.

 

The blue-blooded royalty of the Gulf countries are known to be avid lovers of falconry, spending huge sums of money on the rare birds.

 

Some sides of the falcon trade involve illegal wildlife trafficking. Recently, seven falcons were reportedly seized by Pakistani customs officials as a passenger tried to smuggle them to Bahrain.

 

Earlier in November, WWF Russia reported an attempt to smuggle 29 falcons to Arab Gulf countries from the Republic of Khakassia, in south-central Siberia.

 

The smuggled birds, which include rare saker falcons, may be confiscated by a court decision and then either set free or taken to falcon breeding centers, a WWF spokesman said.

 

Photo: Survivor Alexei Gradulenko, 35. Picture: Russian Emergencies Ministry 

 

Police in Russia are searching for two fishermen who allegedly chopped up one of their comrades and ate him after the group got lost in a Siberian wilderness.

 

Police in Siberia are now trying to piece together a mystery that unfolded after four friends went on a fishing expedition in August in the endless taiga.

 

Three months later, only two men came back from their adventure along the remote Sutam River, after they were located in the Sakha Republic (Yakutia) by a rescue helicopter from the Russian Emergencies Ministry, which saved their lives. 

 

Photo: Survivor Alexander Abdullaev, 37. Picture: Russian Emergencies Ministry 

 

Alexander Abdullaev, 37, and Alexei Gradulenko, 35,  were found alive - but only just. They were extremely weak, having survived temperatures of below minus 30C in the coldest inhabited region on the planet.

 

One body was found and one is still missing. The police are not certain if the corpse is that of Viktor Komarov, 47, or Andrei Kurochkin, 44.  

 

But they do think that the dead man was murdered.

 

And the cuts on his body suggested to investigators that he was cannibalised, according to morbid media accounts. 

 

Near the human remains was found  a wooden stake which was possibly  used as a weapon to kill the man. Another version states an axe was involved. 

 

Blood was visible on the snow. And, allegedly, a bloodstained jacket was also found. 

 

It is also clear that the fourth man is missing. Was he cannibalised too? This is only one of many questions about this bizarre incident. 

 

'We suspect, the two survivors could have killed and eaten their friend just because of hunger,' an anonymous source told Life News tabloid website. 

 

'But both deny they have anything to do with his death. Looking at the body parts found at the spot, we clearly saw cuts.

 

'It means the body was hacked to pieces. 

 

'Now the body parts - some human flesh and part of the skull - are taken to the morgue.'

 

An unnamed investigator was quoted saying: 'What we found were chopped human bones, fragments of a skull and a bloodstained chunk of ice.'

 

He told Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper: 'It's clear that this person did not die of his own accord.' 

 

Officials in the town of Neryungri, in remote Yakutia, some 250 km from the 'crime scene' say that a murder probe has been launched. 

 

Evidently, investigators twice visited the site and removed human body parts, suggesting violent death. 

 

'Investigators carried out an examination of two areas. Fragments of a human corpse with signs of a violent death were discovered and removed,' said a statement from the regional branch of Russia's Investigative Committee. 

 

'A criminal case into suspected murder has been opened'.

 

Adding to the intrigue, Pravda.ru reported that after being rescued, the two survivors - both from the Russian Far East - escaped from a hospital and disappeared after police interrogated them. 

 

They were not arrested or charged but rather than receive proper medical attention after suffering extreme hunger and frostbite from the impact of deep cold, they preferred to abscond, it was claimed. 

 

Their odyssey had begun in Amur region, in the Russian Far East. On 8 August they left Dipkun village on what was intended to be a two or three week finish trip. Going north some 300 km, they were trapped by floodwater, by now in the Sakha Republic. Their UAZ jeep sank in the swollen river, they told rescuers.

 

At the end of September they managed to make one mobile phone call - but then vanished. 

 

In November, Abdullaev's sister - Faina Mukhina - went to police to report the four fishermen missing. Asked why she did not do so earlier, she said: 'The taiga is his element, he can live there for a month or two, and he was not alone. He was with friends from Saratov.'

 

At one point, the men also managed to leave a note.

 

'We had hope. Gold diggers found a note from our men dated 20 October', added Olga Kurochkina, wife of Andrei Kurochkin. She is refusing to give up hope, saying: 'Police said that they had found human remains. But I believe that Andrei is alive. I am hoping other hunters have found him and he is not alone'.

 

 

The men had visited this remote base in the taiga. 'Nobody was there, they took some food and left 3,000 rubles and a note'. 

 

The official search got underway in earnest on 23 November, but even then it took one week to find the survivors. 

 

'They told that they had lost their vehicle and decided to go back home on foot,' according to rescuers. 

 

'They split up from the two other men when Andrei Kurochkin hurt his leg.

 

'Andrei and Viktor Komarov stayed in the hunter's winter house near the Daurka River and two other men went further and soon reached the gold diggers' house. Chancing on empty hunters houses, they 'borrowed food and clothes' and found skis. 

 

'When there was not enough food they fried animal skin and moss and sawdust and ate it,' according to one account. 

 

'Once they crossed a river and fell under the ice and then had to spend a day near the fire getting warm.'

 

Now at home, Abdullaev's mother Lidiya said: 'When I saw them, I was startled at their slim, swollen, dark faces.'

 

'Doctors gave them medicine and recommended a lot of good food. We are feeding them with chicken soup and manty (Siberian ravioli), their appetite is just like a beast.'

 

The survivors were photographed on a helicopter as they were flown to safety by helicopter. The mystery remains of how they survived and law enforcement officials must now decide if there is any truth in the cannibalism claims. DNA tests are being carried out on the human remains. 

 

Immediately after they were rescued, the two men appeared to be starving, said a policeman. 

 

'The whole night they just drank tea and ate pies and heated up corned beef. There was the impression there was something wrong with them,' he said. 

 

'We put this down to terrible stress as they had had to suffer for a long time.'

 

Questions have been raised over why the men would need to cannibalise a friend if they were expert fishermen.

 

One other theory is that rather than fishermen they may have been amateur gold diggers.