Russians Mark Football Fan's Shooting Death

Your browser doesn’t support HTML5

MOSCOW -- Hundreds of people have demonstrated in the Russian capital to commemorate the shooting death last month during a brawl of a football fan, RFE/RL's Russian Service reports.

The incident has divided Muscovites in part because of Russian investigators' conclusion that Spartak Moscow fan Yegor Sviridov was shot after being "knowingly provoked" by a group of men from the North Caucasus.

A police spokesman told RFE/RL that the planned activities took place without major incident but that 19 people were detained as a "preventive measure."

The demonstrators laid flowers at the bus stop where Sviridov was shot, which has attracted icons, candles, and poems -- many of them with nationalistic or xenophobic undertones.

Around 1,000 people gathered in St. Petersburg to mark Sviridov's death.

with additional agency reporting