Terror Returns

The November 27 train bombing that killed 26 and wounded nearly 100 in the resulting train wreck turned public attention once again to domestic terrorism, after several years of relative calm (though attacks have continued within the bounds of the northern Caucasus).

The blast that derailed the Nevsky Express — one of the faster and more expensive ways of traveling from Moscow to St. Petersburg by rail — took place in a forested region near Novgorod.   

Chechen separatist Doku Umarov and a nationalist group both claimed responsibility for the attack. Yet at present there is insufficient evidence to support either claim. Umarov, thought to be hiding somewhere in the Caucasus, is the primary suspect for a similar train attack in 2007, but he also claimed to be behind the accident at Sayano-Shushenskaya hydro plant (see Russian Life Nov/Dec 2009), which turned out to be false.

Since 2007, public opinion polls have not cited terrorism as a major concern; that concern has been on a steady decline since peaking during the 2004 Beslan school massacre in North Ossetia. The blast also does not help the Russian government in its efforts to convince the international community that it can ensure peace and stability during the 2014 Sochi Olympic Games.

What is more, the blast exposed the fragility of Russia’s vast railway network. With  85,500 kilometers of track, it is the world’s largest rail system and most of it passes through uninhabited areas, which can be difficult to access  —  proving fatal for victims of this explosion who sustained serious wounds and had to wait for hours as ambulances struggled down a bumpy forest road.

A blogger who was in one of the three derailed cars described the immediate surroundings after the explosion as “a mass of bodies, cabin parts and remnants of seats,”  as might be expected when a train traveling at 197 kilometers an hour slams to a sudden stop.

The Oktyabrskaya Rail Line, which stretches from Moscow to St. Petersburg and beyond, now plans to invest in extra cameras and guard posts along the tracks, under a program to tighten security along Russia’s most popular rail route.

Russian television’s reaction to the accident, Kommersant noted, was indicative of the state of new media in the country. The train wreck occurred at 9:30 p.m. and Euronews channel first broke the news, followed by the independent Ren-TV, about 30 minutes later. The two main (state-owned) channels, Rossiya and Channel One, waited until the morning to mention the catastrophe, staying with planned programming, including comedy shows.

Several years ago, Kommersant reported, when Russia experienced a wave of terrorist attacks, “the volume of information and the attention given to it were very high,” and the subject matter permeated all talk shows. This time around, coverage was confusing and incomplete, and ratings showed that people preferred to watch other programs, almost as if, “for the first time, the authorities and the people were united in wishing not to see any details of a tragedy that took dozens of lives.”