This paragraph in a Guardian news story about the murder of journalist Paul Klebnikov brought back a memory I had long forgotten:

Mr Klebnikov’s publisher has said the journalist was preparing a book on the murder in 1995 of a prominent TV journalist, Vladislav Listyev.

Vladislav Listyev was murdered a few months after I first arrived in Russia. I remember how shocked people were that he had been killed and I remember at least one television station going off air for the day in his memory. (I can’t imagine that happening in Europe or America.) This was at a time when so many people were mourning or worried sick about their sons who had been sent off to fight in Chechnya. I remember every cathedral I visited in 1995 seemed to be full of mothers lighting candles for their sons.

What a terrible state Russia is in now. Ten years on and things are not much different. Klebnikov’s murder has been blamed on Chechen terrorists. But it is equally possible that is was carried out by the mafia, politicians, or a mixture of the two. Likewise, Listyev also could have been killed by any of the above. In all the time I have known Russia, only a thin line has divided “business”, the mafia, and politics.

I suppose the only difference now is Chechnya, where people continue to die, but we care less…