Starovoitova, Litvinenko, Shchekochikhin, Politkovskya….Nemtsov

Here.

I remember listening to stately, plump, driven Galina Starovoitova, the parliamentarian who investigated corruption in Russia. She gave a talk at the Russian Research Center at Harvard a year or two before she was murdered. I remember being introduced, many years ago, to Yuri Shchekochikhin, a journalist for the New Gazette, another fearless investigator of corruption in Russia,, at a party at an apartment in Massachusetts, also poisoned. I remember the Russian-American Khlebnikov, who had been an investor in Russia, and ran afoul of the biggest crooks. He had gone to Exeter and Princeton, he had powerful American connctions, nothing protected him. He was shot to death. I remember Litvinenko, as so many do, because of the circumstances of his poisoning – at a Japanese restaurant, and the photographs of his drawn-out last days, in a hospital bed. I remember the lawyer Magnitsky, and — vaguely — the other names on the list — and Nemtsov. At the Russian Cemetery of the Just, the plots thicken.