"He died all these years"

The Khimki activist-ecologist Mikhail Beketov died

On April 8, the editor-in-chief of Khimkinskaya Pravda, an ecologist Mikhail Beketov, died in a hospital No. 119 near Moscow. He was brutally beaten in 2008: a concussion, traumatic brain injury, a fracture of the lower leg and multiple hematomas. Then - amputation of the leg and fingers on the left hand, the loss of speech, the disability of the first group. The case of Beketov’s beating has not yet been disclosed.

It all started with the fact that Beketov and the newspaper established by him opposed the cut of the Khimki forest and criticized the administration of the city of Khimki. There were threats and intimidation immediately. Beketov was sure that this was the Khimki officials, in particular, the mayor of the city Vladimir Strelchenko. But the investigation can still not be called customers of Beketov’s beating.

“Misha was the first to write about the cutting of the Khimkinsky forest, and people learned about it,” activist Yevgeny Chirikova told The New Times about her ally. “Precisely because he was special, they hit him.”

In 2010, Mikhail Beketov was awarded the Press Freedom Award Awards by the International Organization “Reporters without Borders”, and in 2011-a prize of the Russian government in the field of print media. In Moscow, in support of Mikhail Beketov, rallies and pickets were repeatedly held. In 2010, a group of musicians and bloggers came to Beketov’s house lying at home: at first an improvised concert was arranged, after which the journalist was awarded a bouquet of 501 roses.

Mikhail Beketov at a rally against cutting down the Khimkinsky forest	Mikhail Beketov before a meeting of the World Court of Khimki

Mikhail Beketov was born in 1958 in the Stavropol Territory, received an education at the Faculty of Journalism of Moscow State University. He worked in the Khimki administration by the press secretary of the mayor, Yuri Koblyin, headed the Khimkinsky News Information Center and the newspaper, then created his own business. In 2007, the Khimkinskaya Pravda newspaper established his own expense.

“Misha inspired us all to work for a public good, he united people around him and actively participated in the life of the city,” Yevgeny Chirikova shared with The New Times. - When they attacked him, it was a huge shock for me and everyone who knew him. In recent years, Misha was no longer at all what I knew - I believe that he was killed then, just all these years he died. But Beketov’s business lives in so many people. ” Evgeny Chirikov is sure of the attack on Beketov, the Khimki administration is involved, but according to her, they are unlikely to be revealed, despite the fact that such a version is present in the materials.

To whom Mikhail Beketov could interfere - The New Times conducted his own investigation of this story ( see No. 49 dated 08.12.2008 ). In addition, the magazine also wrote about the development of events around the Khimki forest .

Photo: ITAR-TASS