Fight with variations

The authorities have denied rumors of ethnic clashes in the Stavropol Territory

In the village of Pelagiada, Shpakovsky district, Stavropol Territory, on Wednesday evening there was a mass fight between local residents - Dargins (one of the Dagestan nationalities) and Russians. As a result, one person was killed and several were injured. However, the scale of the massacre remained a mystery.

Initially it was reported that about 300 people fought, but then denials followed. Local authorities reported that there were no more than 70 people fighting; the police and the Investigative Committee said that three or four people were fighting. At the same time, everyone noted that there was an ordinary domestic conflict, and not clashes on interethnic grounds. As a result, it remains unclear why an ordinary fight attracted so much attention.

The first to inform news agencies about the emergency in Pelagiad was a source in the region’s law enforcement agencies, according to whom up to 300 people allegedly fought. According to these data, the conflict flared up due to the fact that a group of Dargins beat up a Russian young man on Wednesday. The victim turned to a relative for help, who gathered his acquaintances, who went in a crowd to deal with the offenders, finding them in a cafe. During the massacre, someone used a firearm, as a result of which Dargin resident Arsen Magomedov received mortal wounds. The source also reported that special police forces took part in the fight.

The Stavropol Regional Internal Affairs Directorate, in turn, stated that only three to ten people fought. “It was an ordinary fight, and it is absolutely unclear who needed to make all this fuss over an ordinary quarrel. What kind of interethnic unrest can we talk about if a meeting of members of the Security Council of the Russian Federation was held in Stavropol on Wednesday with the participation of top officials of the state?” - stated the Central Internal Affairs Directorate, recognizing the death of one of the participants in the emergency. The Central Internal Affairs Directorate also reported that a local police officer was taken to the hospital and tried to break up the fight, but was himself beaten. It has not yet been possible to detain any of the participants in the fight.

In turn, the head of the Shpakovsky interdistrict department of the SKP, Sergei Polyakov, said that a criminal case of “murder” and “illegal trafficking in weapons” had been opened in connection with the fight. According to him, the conflict occurred between 6-8 young people, among whom there were approximately equal numbers of Russians and Dargins. “One of the participants in the conflict was wounded by a pistol shot, he died on the way to the hospital. Who exactly fired and from what weapon has not yet been established,” said Mr. Polyakov. He also denied information from the regional police department about the injury of a police officer: “I was at the scene of the incident and saw with my own eyes that there was not a single scratch on the police officer.”

The head of the administration of the village of Pelagiada, Viktor Gubanov, gave his version of the emergency. According to him, on Wednesday evening, young people from a neighboring village in about ten cars arrived in Pelagiada to avenge the beating of a fellow villager. “Our villagers fought there, and then they came to us from there to take revenge,” he said. According to these data, everything also happened in a cafe where Dagestanis were sitting, and as a result, five people were injured - a saleswoman and four Dagestanis. “As soon as the fight started, my deputy immediately entered into it to stretch the people. Then they called the police, talked with representatives of the Dagestani diaspora, and managed to resolve the conflict,” said the head of the administration, adding that police units were posted on the streets to avoid unrest. “There was no national conflict, it was just a domestic fight,” Mr. Gubanov said. “On the part of the visitors, no more than 20 people took part in it; on the other side, about 50, and maybe less.”

Anatoly KARAVAEV