Perms Mourns
RFE/RL reporter Anastasia Sechina reports from Perm on the last of three days of mourning for victims of Friday's fire at the Lame Horse nightclub. Alexandr Popov, who caught the first minutes of the fire on video camera, tells her that initially many in the nightclub assumed the flames on the ceiling were the continuation of a fireworks show that had just finished. Popov explains that the club's exit was blocked by half of a locked double door, which meant only one person could exit at a time. Four people have been arrested in connection with the fire and are expected to be charged with fatal negligence under Article 109 of the Criminal Code.
Nazi Propaganda And Molotov's False Son
Sergei Kudryashov of the German Historical Institute in Moscow tells RFE/RL about the reported capture by the Nazis of Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov's alleged son and how he played a role in Nazi propaganda. In November and December 1941, the Nazis broadcast an interview with the him to Soviet troops to convince them that they had nothing to fear from surrendering to the German army. Kudryashov explains that the "son" was in fact a certain Vasily Gegorgiyevich Tarasov from the city of Voronezh who, when captured by the German army, had pretended to be Molotov's son to receive preferential treatment.
Book Reminds Russia About Great Terror
An English-language book, Communism in the Context of Crimes against Humanity, by Swedish historians Klas-Göran Karlsson and Michael Schoenhals, is reminding Russia about its past. The book was presented at Moscow's "Non-Fiction" book festival, and although it was not on sale at the festival, the full version is available for free in Russian on a website (urokiistorii.ru) created by the Sakharov Museum. Museum Director Sergei Lukashevsky tells RFE/RL that the book covers the history of the communist regimes in China and Cambodia as well as in Russia and the Soviet Union, and it contains an important message: "Ideology in itself cannot kill people, but it can legitimize mass murder and genocide."