Attempt of Terrorist Act on a Concert in St. Petersburg

On October 13, 2007, in St. Petersburg, a ska/punk/hardcore festival :Music of the Streets; became a target of several neo-nazi attacks.

The first incident happened at the beginning of the concert. A group of 15-20 neo-nazi skinheads attacked five young people. A young man had his arm broken and a girl was hospitalized with her head injured by a metal stick.

The second incident happened when a Swedish group :Blisterhead; was on stage. A small bag which smelled like smoke was found in the hall and passed over to a guard who was standing near the stage. At that moment there were at least 300 hundred people in the hall. The tragedy didn't occur only because of the swift response by the guards. The smoke was seen coming from the bag and one of the guards doused it with water and removed it from the building without attracting any attention from the crowd.

The police found a homemade explosive device in the bag and the city prosecutor's office initiated charges of illegal possession of explosives (Article 222 of the Criminal Code). The case was given over to the jurisdiction of the newly formed Investigation Committee. There has been no information about any charges of an attempted terrorist attack.

The festival did not have any political overtones; however, a St. Petersburg group :Spitfire;, one of the headliners, is known as being antifascist. The festival had been widely discussed on the web by neo-nazis. Later all the discussions were deleted from the websites.

Reportedly, there were more attacks on individuals before and during the concert.

On October 15, St. Petersburg national socialists on their website implicitly took responsibility for these events, publishing a statement which approved the assaults and the attempted explosion while also threatening antifascists and all the non-political supporters of the ska/punk/hardcore music with new attacks.