Evening Medusa

March 27. In Russia, mourning

Throughout the day, in many cities of the country and abroad , shares of memory of those who died in a fire in the Kemerovo shopping center "Winter Cherry" are held . People began to carry flowers to spontaneous memorials yesterday, yesterday groups were created in social networks with an appeal to enter the streets and squares as a sign of solidarity with the families of the dead. Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Yakutsk, Magadan, Khabarovsk, Kursk, Novorossiysk, Odessa, Prague-an incomplete list of cities where memory promotions were held.

Kemerovo

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who did not say a word about the fire for the whole yesterday, flew to Kemerovo in the morning. He laid flowers to the memorial to the victims, arranged a meeting with officials and met in a hospital with the victims. Then Putin signed a decree : on March 28 it was announced in Russia by the day of national mourning.

Speaking about the death of 64 people, the president twice returned to the topic of demography:

From the very morning to the evening, a rally continued on the Square of Soviets in Kemerovo, whose participants demanded the resignation of local authorities. Putin, like the Kemerovo governor Aman Tuleyev, did not go to the audience. Vice-governor Sergey Tsivilev spoke with the rally participants. At first he accused Sergei Vostrikov, who had three children, his wife and sister, in an attempt to “have to be on the mountain” during a fire. Then he asked for forgiveness from the relatives of the dead and knelt .

Tuleyev also asked for forgiveness - but not at the audience in the square, but by Putin. In addition, the governor complained that an “opposition force” arrived in Kemerovo, which "on the Mount of Human <...> is trying to solve some of his problems." “These are those who are constantly booby,” Tuleyev added. What “opposition power” he was talking about is unknown.

While Putin and Tuleyev were sitting at a meeting, people in the square shouted "resigned!" And they demanded that the president come to the rally. About what was happening there - in the report of the Medusa correspondent Irina Kravtsova:

“Putin, we are your team! Where are you, *****, when do we burn? " - shouted with tears a man whose daughter and wife died in a fire. <...> “Why is the king warm? Why doesn't he want to explain to us why everything is like that? " - a man who had a seven -year -old son died in a fire.

Moscow

As in many other cities, in Moscow, calls for a spontaneous action of the memory of the victims in Kemerovo appeared yesterday. Today, according to the Echo of Moscow radio station, the capital’s authorities decided to “intercept the agenda”. Almost simultaneously with the way Putin announced national mourning, it became known about the official action on Manezhnaya Square. It lasted about an hour: people in white jackets, who called themselves volunteers, organizedly handed out cloves and the same toys.

Participants in the spontaneous action gathered on Pushkinskaya Square an hour later. About five thousand people came. They laid out the word “Kemerovo” with candles and launched balloons into the sky. There were so many flowers that they made a wall high in human height.

Dmitry Tomilov