IN THE EVENING of 20 January the special unit of Soviet police, OMON, storms Latvia's Ministry of Interior. The crowd surrounding the building fights back. The OMON shoot their way into the building, they trash the offices, and flee. There will be five casualties: two policemen, two tv cameramen and a high school kid.
In the Latvian OMON serves an officer called Vladimir Antyufeyev.
A week earlier the occupying army has attacked the crowd defending the tv tower in Vilnius, the capital of neighboring Lithuania. The images of civilians being crushed by tanks have spread throughout the world. It is happening again, everyone seems to think. Is this what perestroika and glasnost stood for, after all?
The next day barricades start going up in Riga.
Historians haven't been able to show an airtight motive for the strike of 20 January. According to one theory, the whole event was a result of a provocation. There was allegedly a third party on the roof of the Ministry of Interior shooting at the crowd and the OMON.
The guide at the Museum of Barricades gave his best guesses on who the Third Party Shooters were. GRU or KGB, he said, or somebody on their payroll.
During the war in Ukraine, 23 years later, officer Antyufeyev pops up again.
He's bold enough to use his own name now, unlike in Transnistria. The amount of self-confidence "The Ant" employs is an alarming progress report on the memory disorder of the human race - and the speed at which the patient's condition has deteriorated. The bastard's arrogance, however, is not a sign of some universal revisionism that has replaced the horror with which we all witnessed the dying throes of the Soviet Union.
Oh, did I forget? Antyufeyev is the deputy prime minister of "Donetsk People's Republic" now. Even a blind pig living on truffles sees he's no separatist from Ukraine, but the last of the KGB Mohicans instead.
Well... that is not news any more, is it?
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4 August, 2014
The New York Times revealed today another reason why The Ant can use his Christian name without a care in the world... that is, the statute of limitations.
I thought there was no such thing for murder.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/08/04/world/europe/separatist-pro-russian-leadership-in-eastern-ukraine-with-a-goal-of-establishing-government.html?referrer=
The Times stole my story, but all is forgiven, since this closing line by Antyufeyev himself will become an instant cult classic,
The Times stole my story, but all is forgiven, since this closing line by Antyufeyev himself will become an instant cult classic,
... we are not doctors, but lawyers and political scientists.
Do the results of The Ant's work, above and below, look like political science to you?
Many thanks for the guide at the museum of 1991 barricades for inspiring conversation and facts instead of fiction. You guys did, and do, a wonderful job! All remaining errors in this post are, of course, all mine.
Sorry for the poor quality of the pics... you probably can't decipher the names. They are: Sergejs Konoņenko and Vladimirs Gomanovičs (the policemen),
Andris Slapiņš and Gvido Zvaigzne* (the cameramen) and Edijs Riekstiņš (the high school kid). Raimonds Salmins, whose memorial stone is also in Bastejkalns park, was killed during the August coup, exactly seven months later.
*) I didn't find Zvaigzne's stone, but his picture is above, the penultimate one.
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The scene of the crime -
6 Raina bulvaris
Many thanks for the guide at the museum of 1991 barricades for inspiring conversation and facts instead of fiction. You guys did, and do, a wonderful job! All remaining errors in this post are, of course, all mine.
AND THE STORY CONTINUES... here!
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