Tragedy in a Russian summer camp

By Slava Tsukerman

Last week a tragic event at a summer camp for children from Moscow, located in Russia’s northwestern Karelia region, was the center of attention of Russian media.

On the evening of June 18, in spite of the predictions of upcoming storm, 47 teenagers under supervision of four camp instructors boarded two boats and a raft. In violation of rules the boats were overloaded and the emergency authorities were not informed about the trip. A storm did come, caused two boats to capsize and the children had found themselves in the cold subarctic water. 14 children between ages 12 and 15 died. The cause of death in most of cases was hypothermia. Some of these children had managed to make their way to a nearby tiny islands or to the shore only to die there. Survivors spent the night on the shore surrounded by the bodies of their dead friends. Rescuers were still recovering bodies from the lake next evening. Five children were hospitalized with hypothermia and trauma wounds.

Here is the video of the event presented by the web site of Radio Liberty:

http://www.rferl.org/media/video/russia-karelia-camp/27809578.html

As a result of the tragedy thousands of children summer camps all over Russia had been inspected and numerous violations of safety rules had been found. It is not surprising that the information triggered emotional reaction all over Russia.

But surprisingly the biggest sensation was made not by the tragedy itself but by Pavel Astakhov, the Children’s Rights Commissioner for the President of the Russian Federation, visiting the surviving children in the hospital.

Smiling Astakhov asked children, who just spent a night in the company of dead bodies of their friends:

“So, had you a nice swim?”

It was not the first time when the Children’s Rights Commissioner shocked Russian public by his not very tactful statements. Once he explained to a 13 year old girl, who entered a zoo after hours and was hurt by a tiger, that “teasing tigers is stupidity and hooliganism”; other time he asked readers of his twitter if it is right to tie little children up.

Not long ago Astakhov approved a marriage of a 47 year old Chechen police chief to a 17 years old girl intimidated by him with the statement:

“The Family Code has an article that, in exceptional cases, the lowest age limit should be set by the regional authorities. In some regions there is no lowest limit. In the Caucasus, girls reach puberty earlier. Let us not be hypocrites. There are places, where 27 years old women are already shriveled as much, as by our standards, they should be at 50”.

Pavel Astakhov (age 49) had graduated from the law faculty of the KGB School in Moscow in 1991. Alegedly he speaks English, Swedish, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese and French as well as Russian.

In 1994 he became a member of the Moscow Bar and set up his own law firm. Astakhov represented some of Russia’s most high profile public figures, including Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov, the descendants of the Romanov dynasty, and several Russian pop-stars. Not all of his clients were happy with his service. In 2000 Astakhov defended Edmond Pope, a retired US naval intelligence officer, who was charged with espionage. Astakhov delivered his closing arguments in verse, reading out to the court a 12-page poem. Pope received a 20-year jail sentence. He was later pardoned by Vladimir Putin.

A prominent Russian journalist Sergey Dorenko stated this week that back in 1990-s he happened to be Astakhov’s client and fired the lawyer as completely incompetent.

In 2002 Astakhov received a Master of Laws from the University of Pittsburgh.

In 2003 he became the host of the first Russian courtroom reality television show  “The Hour of Trial with Pavel Astakhov”.

In 2006 Astakhov received a Doctor of Laws in Russia. The legitimacy of his degree though was disputed by many. The Russian State Library tested his doctoral thesis for plagiarism and discovered that only 0.68% of the text was original work, the remainder having been copy-pasted from other sources.

In the early days of Putin’s rule, Astakhov was a severe critic of the Russian authorities, accusing them of a “total disregard for human rights”. Later he became one of the most prominent Putin’s supporters.

In 2007 Astakhov founded and headed the national movement “For Putin”.

In 2009 he was appointed the Children’s Rights Commissioner for the President of the Russian Federation. His most known achievement in this position was successful lobbying of the law banning adoption of Russian children by American citizens.

After the scandal caused by the statement Astakhov made during his conversation with the survivors of the tragedy in the Karelian camp, a petition to dismiss Astakhov appeared in the Internet. The petition posted on Change.org said: “We call on the society and the state to give an objective assessment of his statement.” More then 150,000 people signed the petition.

At first Astakhov reacted to the petition with jokes. Russian media published several gossips about possible resignation of Astakhov, but official representatives of the Kremlin didn’t confirm the information.

Finaly Astakhov himself said to the press that he gave to Vladimir Putin his letter of resignation and now it is up to the President to decide will he keep his position or not. Several days had past since then, Putin keeps silence.

If the resignation of Astakhov is accepted, it will be the first case in the contemporary Russian history when a public figure had resigned due to public protests.