Zakhar Prilepin is still waiting for progress in the case of beating of a Kommersant journalist

The case of the beating of journalist Kashin is already a year and a half old

Zakhar Prilepin, writer

So we now have a new president. The celebrations have died down, the political squabbling is gradually ending, Kremlin figures are saying that it’s time to work, and that’s enough of holding rallies.

Here we are about the same thing.

Let's get to work.

It would have been worth writing in detail about the case of journalist Oleg Kashin at the end of 2011, when this “hanger” was one year old. But then everyone was preparing for the parliamentary elections, then different people began to walk from square to square, and the noise was such that any topic would have been drowned in it.

Now, in connection with the latest news about police lawlessness and well-founded proposals to finally fire Rashid Nurgaliev, it’s time to remind about the Kashin case.

Moreover, the “hanger” will soon turn one and a half years old - also almost an anniversary.

It’s the same with us: they beat someone up, or, God forbid, kill them, or run over them, or put them in prison - the media buzz only lasts so long until a new news story creeps in. And these reasons are a dime a dozen in our area.

So we are simply not able to resist the whole world to demand to know who broke the head of the next National Bolshevik, to insist on the acquittal of some 100% poor fellow who, it is unknown how, fell under Article 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, or to find out what ultimately happens to high-ranking officials who periodically travel into oncoming traffic in order to crush every living thing in its path.

The reaction is just the opposite: if there is no such news for a week, our charming supporters of a stable regime, making tired faces, ask: everything is fine, no one is being killed on the streets, innocent people are not being thrown into prison, when will your whining stop!

No guys. They kill, throw, shred, despise the laws, and lie, and lie, and lie. Therefore, the whining will not stop.

56 strokes

On November 6, 2010, at about 0:40, journalist Oleg Kashin drove a taxi to the gates of the house on Pyatnitskaya, 28, where he rented an apartment. Two still unknown young citizens were waiting for Kashin at the fence. One of them was holding a bouquet of chrysanthemums in his hands, in which an iron rod was hidden.

The first one unexpectedly grabbed Kashin and held him for a minute and a half, while the second one beat him with an iron rod with scope and anger, inflicting 56 blows.

(Surely both accomplices will read this text. Hello, guys. There is a God.)

Kashin was taken to Moscow Hospital No. 36, where he was diagnosed with fractures of the tibia, upper and lower jaws, hand, traumatic separation of two phalanges of a finger, traumatic brain injury and multiple injuries.

Doctors predicted his return to active work no earlier than the spring of 2011. But he returned to duty earlier.

In connection with the attack, a criminal case was opened under Articles 30, Part 3, and 105, Part 2, of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation - attempted murder committed by a group of persons.

Dmitry Medvedev, at that time the President of Russia, promptly wrote on Twitter that the criminals must be found and punished, after which he instructed Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika and Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliev to take special control of the investigation of the crime.

But, as it now turns out, Chaika’s control with Nurgaliev means little. Or, on the contrary, they organized such special control that the Kashin case, having reached a certain point, froze.

Roll call of slanderers

Initially there were several versions.

Kashin took an active part in covering the history of Khimki, and it was difficult not to notice that his beating happened a day after the attack on Khimki Forest activist Konstantin Fetisov.

But the investigation, which initially worked, soon rejected this version. And Kashin himself was inclined to believe that he was “ordered” and “punished” by other people - those related to the Nashi organization.

In his blog, Kashin wrote that he does not exclude the involvement of Vasily Yakemenko, at that time the head of Rosmolodezh, in the crime.

Yakemenko, as a conscientious and extremely scrupulous person, was very upset and immediately filed a lawsuit for the protection of honor and dignity, demanding that this information be refuted and that he be paid 500 thousand rubles as compensation for moral damage.

Oddly enough, the court rejected this claim. Otherwise it would have been absolutely beautiful: first the man was hit 56 times with an iron rod, and then he was fined another half a million, saying that we are all equal before the law and we will not allow anyone to slander here.

A little later, political scientist and blogger Alexander Morozov made public his following thoughts: “One episode has been haunting me for four days. I met with one Moscow journalist close to the “circles” and asked him: why is everything so quiet on the Kashin case? No interim comments etc. And he tells me: “Well, the SKP investigated the case. That is, they began to investigate and actually ran into guys who were somehow connected with the Kremlin youth groups of “that period,” i.e. with Yakemenko. And now it’s a dead end. Now, in order to publicize this and set it in motion, a political decision is required...”

Kashin immediately responded: “In fact, I myself do not doubt the “Yakemenko” version, and I have no other versions... and I do not believe that my case is so difficult to solve, and the silence of the UPC, in my opinion, disposes precisely to such conclusions as Morozov’s.”

We waited

However, all this remained a virtual correspondence that did not affect anyone in any way.

Well, yes, everyone knows how many bad things Kashin dug up and told about Yakemenko, the best friend of football fans and the Seliger entertainer. Well, yes, everyone remembers how long Kashin’s portrait with the caption “Will be punished” hung on the website of the Young Guard organization, and after the beating the portrait suddenly disappeared. Well, yes, it makes me think that in the multi-volume materials of the Kashin case there are hundreds of interrogations and the investigators have not touched upon only the main suspect for the role of the customer - Yakemenko himself.

“Are Kashin’s suspicions justified? Is he unfounded?” - another reader will ask.

So let Yakemenko himself refute his unfoundedness - or is it beneath him to do this?

Otherwise, the whole investigation has stopped and doesn’t want to move.

Oleg Kashin, whom I know well and gladly consider to be my friend, is now somehow embarrassed to remind the public about all this: they say, remember, guys, they beat me on the head a year and a half ago?..

We have plenty of well-wishers on the Internet who will respond to all this with a fervent bark: yes, you hesitated with your broken head. Alive? Just go and be happy that you didn’t finish it off, there are enough problems without you.

But it’s not just about Kashin. The fact is that in Russia in recent years more than 150 journalists have been victims of attacks, many of these cases are just as “hanging fruit” as the one we are talking about now. There is only one difference: the head of state demanded that the Kashin case be investigated personally.

Well, yes, the chapter is about to shift, but the same Nurgaliev remains.

Just on the eve of the anniversary of his case, Kashin received signals from the Investigative Committee that there was no need to cast a vote before the elections: everything is in order, we will soon find the scoundrels, wait quietly until March.

Well, we waited. Huh?

Shall we wave without looking?

For a whole year, investigator Sergei Golkin led the Kashin case. Then the case was unexpectedly transferred to another investigator, Nikolai Ushchapovsky.

On the eve of the replacement of investigators, Kashin and Golkin exchanged several letters.

“The correspondence was emotional,” Kashin told me in those days, “and I’m not ready to reproduce it, but based on its results, I had a strong feeling that, firstly, the replacement of the investigator was somehow connected with the elections (I understand that this sounds like a joke, but all of Russia is our joke) and, secondly, the chances of completing the investigation have sharply decreased. I ended up hiring a lawyer...

“In such a situation,” Kashin continued, “people rejoice over little things, so I rejoice.” Recently, Surkov’s political strategist Pavel Danilin, who had been spreading rumors for a long time and aggressively about the fact that they did not kill me for my texts, told me that he was wrong, and apologized to me. But this, in my opinion, is the most significant news of the “Kashin case” in recent times.

There is one more touching fact, we will add: Ushchapovsky until recently led the case of the murder of journalist Yuri Shchekochikhin. Now this case is being led by Sergei Golkin. They waved.

Should we expect that in a year they will change again?

The month of March has arrived

The last time Kashin and I spoke was quite recently, after two months of mild all-Russian pre- and post-election tremors.

“Oleg,” I ask, “what news do you have?”

“Amidst the rallies, I forgot about my case,” he answered sincerely and cheerfully. “There is no news—I ended up meeting with the investigator once, but I just got to know each other, nothing more.” This was about two months ago.

“Well, then, let’s talk in general, Oleg,” I suggested, “since in particular everything remains in the same place.”

Back in 2007, you answered my question about your attitude towards the authorities with the following: “These people had no choice but to take full responsibility for what was happening in the country (liberals call this process the “curtailment of democracy”), but the responsibility turned out to be exorbitant. And now there is no way out: to refuse this responsibility means to bring everything down, burying ourselves under the rubble.” Do you still think that way?

“The funny thing is,” Kashin answers, “that I still think so with the amendment that now I don’t see what can collapse - everything has already happened.”

However, Kashin can be answered: they hit you over the head with rebar, but we haven’t yet, and we don’t dream about it at all.

And try to argue with them.

— In general, what’s your mood, Oleg? — I take the topic even broader.

“For some reason I’m in a good mood, that is, there’s no need to worry.” The self-destruction of power has already begun.

If we talk about the specific case of Kashin, then Oleg is definitely right.

Because, it seems to me, if his case is revealed, it will certainly become a fact of self-destruction of the authorities. And if you don’t reveal it, too.

The only thing we should not do, in honor of this self-destruction, is forget that it is suspended.

Put a bold tick somewhere in a visible place: the case of journalist Kashin has not been solved, because they cannot solve it, but rather they do not want to.

Hanging investigation phase