Paratrooper's Day: All-Russian chronicle of battles

Passed on August 2, 2006, the Day of the Airborne Forces throughout the country was marked by traditional fights and pogroms, in particular, of a nationalist nature.

So, at least two incidents are known in Moscow : paratroopers, who were organizedly delivered to the scene in the Ural, smashed tents at the Dorogomilovsky market and beat up sellers, mostly people from the Caucasus, and a group of paratroopers who tried to steal watermelons in an open tent tied up fight with the seller.

It is also known about the incident in the Moscow metro: two paratroopers on the Tagansko-Krasnopresnenskaya line beat a passenger (according to the person who reported the incident, "they did not like the color of his skin"). Then one of the attackers broke the bottle and inflicted injuries on others, and the other broke the glass with his foot, a fragment of which hit the eye of one of the passengers.

According to BABR.Ru, dozens of fights took place in the central region of Irkutsk alone , and almost all Chinese entrepreneurs closed their outlets that day. According to Baikal.TV, a mass brawl between Azerbaijani citizens and representatives of the Airborne Forces took place in the Irkutsk Central Market. The fight was stopped after the intervention of the special forces of the Central Internal Affairs Directorate. All participants were taken to the police station.

It is also known that in Togliatti there was a pogrom at a mini-market, where paratroopers attacked merchants and broke watermelons (according to the victims, after they refused to give watermelons "as a gift"). A member of the board of the Togliatti branch of the League of Azerbaijanis of the Samara region, Azhdar Nasirov, was injured in the fight. According to A. Nasipov, the police refused to intervene in the conflict for a long time.

There is information about a pogrom at another Togliatti market and about a mass brawl involving paratroopers and people from the Caucasian republics, but the city's police department did not confirm it.

In Novosibirsk, there was a mass brawl at the Central Market. On the way to the market, the paratroopers loudly shouted “Chunks out!”, stopped passers-by who were suspicious of them and found out if they were from the Caucasus. In the market itself, the paratroopers started a fight with the sellers. The police detained about 10 paratroopers. All of them were sentenced to administrative fines ranging from 500 to 1.5 thousand rubles, no criminal cases were opened.

In Kazan, during the celebration of the Paratrooper's Day, there was a pogrom in the Central Market. According to numerous eyewitnesses, drunken paratroopers with belts in their hands beat everyone who came under the arm, smashed trading stalls, etc. However, representatives of the Kazan police department say that there was a small skirmish at the market and that four paratroopers were detained and will face administrative penalties in the form of fines.

Markets were closed in Ufa to avoid pogroms. It is also known about the "verbal skirmish" between paratroopers and merchants in the Ufa market "Zatonsky". However, the head of the press service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Bashkiria, Ruslan Sharafudinov, told a Komsomolskaya Pravda correspondent that "the conflict was resolved at the very beginning. Within half an hour, the paratroopers dispersed in one direction, and the merchants, having closed their shops, in the other."

**Based on Internet blogs

Voronov K. "It is generally impossible to agree with them" // Kommersant-Novosibirsk. August 4, 2006.**

Sources

• Taevsky D. Paratrooper's Day. Rating - two! // BABR.Ru. 2006. August 3.
• The airborne troops were smashed, the police department was silent // Information portal of Togliatti. 2006. August 3.
• Novosibirsk public security police chief: All work with paratroopers on the day of the Airborne Forces was hung up on the police // IA REGNUM. 2006. August 3.
• During the celebration of the Airborne Forces Day in Kazan, a real massacre took place // All Russia. Press review. 2006. August 6.
• Cossack A. There was enough work for reinforced police squads // AS Baikal.TV. 2006. August 3.
• Galieva N. On the Day of the Airborne Forces, some Ufa markets were closed // Komsomolskaya Pravda - Ufa. 2006. 4 August.