Russia, "They killed Vanya" + The life and death of Ivan Khutorskoy + Attack against office of "Young Russia" in Moscow

A-Infos Wed, 18 Nov 2009

The following text appeared yesterday. According to several folks on our
platform, it is the most thoughtful response to the murder in Moscow of
Ivan Khutorskoi, an antifa activist. As such, it is less about that
horrible event than about the growth of the neo-Nazi movement and the
Kremlin’s attempts to control and manipulate elements of that movement for
its own ends. ---- Copylefter: “They Killed Vanya” ---- They killed Vanya.
Now the Nazis don’t jump random punk-rock concertgoers — now they operate
like professionals. And indeed, why else would they have trained so much
at “patriot” camps and abandoned building sites if only to operate like a
mob of disguised football hooligans who attack their victims with knives?
If it goes on this way, then the right-wingers will simply gun down all
the important actors in the antifascist network. Then they’ll finish
off the “importunate” liberals like the folks at SOVA. Then probably
they’ll go after artists: after all, they’re too visible, and besides,
they already have practical experience with organizing pogroms at art
exhibitions. And after that the selection of books at Falanster will
arouse their displeasure… And so, without taking power directly, the
fascists will quite palpably begin limiting the freedom of people who
aren’t involved in political life. Meanwhile, the Kremlin will with one
hand catch some “right-wing terrorist” or other, reporting to the west
about the success of its operation, while with the other it will shake the
hands of his
comrades-in-arms, make them aides to Duma deputies, and shell out dough
to organize right-wing resources — all exclusively within the conceptual
framework of controlling the nationalists. What kind of fucking
controllable Nazis are we talking about? How can you use training camps
to “castrate” Nazis?

RNE (Russian National Unity), a 1000% police-controlled organization,
was able to use the financing and resources of pro-Kremlin structures to
recruit a staggering number of people to the right-wing movement:
newspapers that were distributed amongst cops and the military, training
camps… The story of the NSO (National-Socialist Society) and [Dmitry]
Rumiantsev is also widely known, but who cares? Now there are new Nazis
at the feeding trough — Russian Image (Russkiy Obraz). It’s total
fucking nonsense: the guy under whose name [the organization’s]
eponymous journal is registered is being prosecuted for a political
murder to the accompaniment of the state-controlled media, while his
comrades-in-arms write daring texts about “killer journalists,” and the
Kremlin gives them permission to hold concerts by Kolovrat [a Russian
Nazi skinhead band whose name is taken from the Slavic version of the
swastika] in the middle of Moscow.

I will say it one more time: what kind of fucking controllable
nationalists are we talking about? What, if you create a legal political
buffer for them and feed them, they won’t kill people? Fuck that.
Vanya’s murder is merely the latest tragic example of the idiocy of this
idea. It’s clearly revenge for [the arrests] of [Nikita] Tikhonov and
[Evgenia] Khasis, and the legality of the Russian Marches couldn’t stop
it in any way.

Meanwhile, posts and comments have already appeared in LiveJournal in
which people who “do not approve” of fascists talk about how the antifa
are the same kind of shaven-headed extremists —just look at what a big
guy [Ivan Khutorskoi] was, and he’s wearing a Lonsdale shirt. This is
such a convenient way to distance yourself from the problem. It’s in the
style of the late nineties: all politics is sansara, and the best way to
deal with it is to consciously keep aloof. But keeping aloof is possible
only if and when all participants in an event are equally losers. If you
recognize that at least one of them has truth and honesty on his side,
then keeping aloof is tantamount to treachery. And that is why the
flywheel of collective therapy — “they’re just like the Nazis, they’re
just like the Nazis…” — will start spinning again.

It is time to put a stop to it. What is happening has long ago stopped
corresponding to the favorite theory of office clerks made wise by their
benefits packages (about turf battles between neighborhood teenage
gangs) — this is genuine political terrorism. And the policy of the
authorities vis-a`-vis the right-wingers — this de-marginalization of
Nazis in the teeth of a constant stream of murders — unties the hands of
the “Aryan warriors” and enables them to recruit 100 people for every
one that gets sent to prison.

Moreover, there is no need at all for any kind of “centers for extremism
prevention” or passing harsher laws. As it is, they already forbid
practically everything you can think of, but for some reason the Nazis
aren’t becoming fewer. We need a decisive mobilization on the part of
all people who don’t fancy ending up to their ears in fascist shit,
despite the fact that we’re unaccustomed to traditional political actions.

We need to put an end to very possibility that the authorities could
support the right-wingers. For the sake of this goal we can even forget
about political differences, about our traditional fussiness and the
fear of being deceived by “politicos.” Otherwise we’ll soon find
ourselves in a country where the Nazis have grown so strong and made
themselves so at home that it won’t even be possible to think about
autonomy and personal freedom.

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The life and death of Ivan Khutorskoy

Yesterday evening, Monday the 16th of November, 26 year old anti-fascist
Ivan “Vanya Kostolom” Khutorskoy was shot to death at the entrance to
his home at Khabarovsk street in the east side of Moscow; according to
some information with two shots to his head.

Vanya was a great figure in the Russian anti-fascist movement, and I am
sure many people will write down their memories of him in thedays,
months and years to come. But as of today most of his friends are too
angry and too shocked, at the loss of this friend and comrade.

My first memories of Vanya are from around 2004, I was running anarchist
distro at a concert in R-Club. By that time I wasn't going to gigs too
often, so most of the faces were unknown to me. It was before the period
when after the murder of Sasha Ryukhin when Moscow hardcore went
completely underground. Thus the concert was openly announced, and you
could not be sure who was around. So I was a bit wary of the skinhead
crowd, especially this one big guy. But there was no reason to worry,
Vanya being there was actually the best guarantee that any trouble would
be handled.

I do not know where Vanya got his nickname “Kostolom”, “Bonecrusher”.
Maybe it was some kind of joke, as it is hard to imagine a more friendly
and humorous guy than Vanya.

Last time I saw Vanya was at the “No surrender” mixed martial arts
tournament, organised on the 10th of October this year in Moscow. The
tournament was organised in memory of another murdered anti-fascist,
Fyodor Filatov. Vanya was the referee, as seen in the photo above. Vanya
was well-trained in Sambo, a martial arts developed in Soviet Union
which is still popular in the region. He he had some success in
tournaments and he achieved the degree of Candidate for Master of Sports
of Russia. He also competed in arm-wrestling. This was one of the
reasons that made him especially feared and hated among Nazis, since
they attempt to picture their enemies as weak alcoholics and junkies.
Few Nazis could match up to Vanya in a fair fight, this is why they
attacked him with razorblades, screwdrivers and knives, and when even
that did not work out, with a gun.

Before that my last meeting with him was outside the Ska-P concert last
May. None of my friends had enough money to pay 30 euros for a concert
of Spanish ska-punkers, but we decided to give out free anti-fascist
papers outside. After all, on the concert poster the group was in
anti-fascist t-shirts – not a big thing in Spain, but something for
which a musician may have to pay with his life in Moscow. Thus handing
stuff outside was not any worse than leafletting random people at the
street. Vanya and a number of other people were asked to cover us.

The reaction of semi-yuppie clubbers and punks to our papers was mixed –
obviously many were there just to party. Then a phonecall – another
group of comrades was in a trouble few kilometers south, followed by a
larger mob of Nazis. Our cover had to move to clear things out. I had no
plans for a fight that evening, but I had little choice – having
distributed anti-fascist papers to hundreds of people, going wandering
around afterwards alone could easily end up with 5 inches of steel
between my ribs. So I had to stick with the crew.

We met with the other mob and regrouped. Vanya warned about not
attacking as soon as Nazis were in sight due to the fact that they
would figure out that they were outnumbered and just run away and never
get caught. But people could not hold themselves back. 100+ meters was
way too much distance to close the gap, Nazis ran to alleys and jumped
over some fences, no one was caught. I was in bad shape so I could not
run as fast as the rest, Vanya simply didn't run because he knew it was
pointless. So we were left behind the mob with some girls who avoided
being in the frontline, and together we took a look around if any Nazis
had hidden in an alley to our side.

Later that evening, another regroup – some asses kicked, some more
missed opportunities. But it would be pointless to tell all these
stories – while I was an unusual guest, for Vanya beating up Nazis was
as routine as waking up in the morning. To tell one of these stories
would be to tell nothing, as there are hundreds of them.

Vanya was a common face in the punk scene since the beginning of the
century. Anti-antifa websites have large galleries of him, the oldest
photos with a mohawk hairstyle. He was not in the first Moscow Antifa
generation which got together around spring of 2002, but when he joined
up in 2003-2004 he stayed for good.

Sometimes, after such tragedies, there is a kind of sad body-snatching
match going on where everyone wants to claim a dead hero – that was the
case for example with Stanislav Markelov, who, while still alive was a
prankster who told to anarchists that he was a social-democrat, and to
trotskists and stalinists that he was an anarchist, just to frustrate
everyone.

With Vanya, any such post-mortem claims would be a misrepresentation any
way you look at it, as every clique and crew in the scene considered him
one of their own, and he was respected and loved by absolutely everyone.
Vanya considered himself a RASH skinhead, which did not hold back the
apolitical and patriotic Moscow Trojan Skinheads from considering him as
one of them. Anarchists of course considered Vanya one of the
anarchists, and it is true that Vanya had an anti-authoritarian and
social position and was always ready to provide security for anarchists
events. But he did not live for activism – he lived for the streets and
for punk rock.

He was as sharp as a razorblade, and he finished his juridical studies
at the Russian State Social University with a “red diploma”, that is a
diploma “with excellence” given to students in the region of the former
Soviet Union who have almost exclusively the best possible grades. As
there are few people with juridical studies in the scene, I had some
hopes that Vanya would join the ranks of the activist lawyers when he
would retire from street fighting one day – even before he was murdered,
Stas Markelov was overhelmed with legal cases from our movement and had
trouble in dealing with them alone. Vanya and Stas knew each other well,
and Vanya also provided security to some press-conferences held by Stas.
Most recently Vanya worked as a lawyer in “Deti ulitsy”-center
(“Children of the street”), which works with street children and other
children with difficulties.

Of course people now ask why he went to his flat that evening, although
his address was posted all around in the Nazi websites. Vanya often
stayed in other places. Maybe he had some important business with his
family, maybe he just spit in the face of death, having survived so many
attempts on is life.

Vanya was jumped the first time in 2005 and his head was cut with a
razorblade. This incident was recorded with a CCTV camera and used in a
TV documentary of NTV channel, which is available online here:
http://rutube.ru/tracks/663741.html?v=242f56ae5e0dca6e5c9d77cc8558fb5d .
Next time, in the autumn of the same year, they attempted kill him – his
neck was punctured 6 times with a sharpened screwdriver, which is a
popular weapon among Russian Nazis as it punctures deeper than a knife.
Any of these strikes could have been lethal, but miraculously none of
them hit arteries and he survived. This incident was also recorded to a
CCTV camera, but cops had little interest in investigatingand they
didn't even check the recording! It took more than half a year for
Vanya to fully recover from this attack.

In January of this year, Vanya was stabbed in his stomach during a
street fight, this wound was almost lethal as well but he survived. And
now, when everything else failed, Nazis decided to use guns – they
finally succeeded. .

S2W

Vanya's father died a few years ago, he is by his mother and his
sister. Donations to support friends and family with funeral costs are
welcome, you may use Yandex-money account 41001411894609, or in case you
do not know what that is, you may donate through ABC-Moscow:
http://www.avtonom.org/donate. But in this case write to ABC-Moscow
about your plans (abc-msk AT riseup DOT net, and also indicate in
transfer that it is “for Kostolom friends and family”.

Source: http://avtonom.org/index.php?nid=2857

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Attack against office of "Young Russia" in Moscow

In evening of 17th of November, friends of Ivan Khutorskoy, anarchists
and anti-fascists gathered at metro station "Tsvetnoy Boulevard" to
gather financial support to family of Ivan. At least 400 people gathered
there.

Soon a bus with OMON riot police and people from "Center of
Counteraction Against Extremism" CPE came to disperse crowd, which was
gathering peacefully and had not intentions to demonstrate at the spot.

According to texts posted to some blogs, aroup of people moved to metro,
police tried to grab people but everyone was succesfully dearrested.

Later part of the people who gathered took metro to office of
pro-Kremlin youth organisation "Young Russia" (Rossiya Molodaya), which
is openly cooperating with organisation "Russkiy Obraz" (Russian Way),
linked to
suspected murderers of lawyer Stanislav Markelov and anarchist
journalist Anastasia Baburova. Office of "Young Russia" was attacked
with rocks, stones, flares and road signs. After attack, anti-fascists
escaped.

According to anonymous statement posted to some indymedia sites (for
example here: http://piter.indymedia.org/node/8659), "Young Russia" was
picked as a target due to its links to neonazis.

More on Young Russia Nazi connection:
http://chtodelat.wordpress.com/2009/11/18/copylefter-they-killed-vanya/
http://www.avtonom.org/index.php?nid=2853

More on Ivan Khutorskoy:
http://www.avtonom.org/index.php?nid=2857

In Russian: http://www.avtonom.org/index.php?nid=2856

Source: http://www.avtonom.org/index.php?nid=2859