Oleg Kashin

Oleg Kashin is a prominent Russian journalist whose sharp articles about current events and corruption in Russia caused him numerous threats and an attempted murder. He was born Oleg Vladimirovich Kashin on June 17, 1980, in Kaliningrad, Russia, Soviet Union (formerly Konigsberg, Germany). His father, an engineer with two degrees, was privileged enough to see the world as a Soviet merchant marine officer; his mother, a Medical Doctor, has been working at a children's hospital. Kashin spent his formative years in Kaliningrad, a former intellectual center of Germany captured by the Red Army in WWII and turned into the westernmost seaport of the former Sovier Union. The city's rich and complex European identity includes the historic cathedral and the tomb of Emmanuel Kant, and also the infamous bunker Adolf Hitler used during the war against Russia. The Soviets closed the city for all, but approved visitors. Only Gorbachev's openness revealed a stark contrast between empty Soviet propaganda and shining prosperity of civilized Europe causing many a chronic disillusionment with the Soviet era. Such environment, and also young Kashin's independent thinking peppered with rough experience at the marine academy, eventually turned him into one-of-a-kind bad-mouthed, aggressive, independent, and sharp political commentator who often uses uncensored lines from the songs of Vladimir Vysotskiy. In 2001, Kashin graduated from the Baltic State Fishing Fleet Academy with a degree in sea navigation. He made several sea cruises as a navigator and also participated in international yachting regattas in Europe and America. From 2001 to 2003, Kashin was a special correspondent for Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper in Kaliningrad. In 2003, he moved to Moscow. There he established himself as a very aggressive journalist collaborating with several reputable newspapers and magazines, such as, Kommersant, Izvestiya, Forbes and Expert among others. Since 2007 Kashin has been a regular author and a deputy editor of the Russian Life magazine. Kashin was one of the first few journalists who visited the imprisoned Mikhail Khodorkovsky in Siberian jail in 2005. At that time, he worked for Izvestia, a large Kremlin-controlled newspaper. But Kashin's reports about Khodorkovsky were never published. Instead, he was fired from Izvestia, and then the editor of that paper war fired too. Eventually, Kashin was made a target for criticism by the pro-government movement "Young Guards" which labeled Kashin "enemy of all Russian people." In June 2004, Kashin was beaten by the Russian Federal security officers while he was reporting about a demonstration near the Russian Government building in Moscow. He suffered a concussion and also had multiple bruises on his face and body. His efforts to sue the Russian Federal security officers were denied by the Russian court. In February 2005, in a suburb of Moscow, Kashin suffered from illegal forceful actions while he was reporting about the pro-Kremlin gathering of "Nashi" - the notorious nationalistic youth movement led by Vasili Yakemenko who is a ranking officer employed by the Russian Feds. At that gathering, Kashin was taken by force by several "Nashi" men and was physically and psychologically humiliated by being held hostage for several hours in a closed room. Later the "Nashi" website labeled Kashin as their enemy. In 2007 Kashin appeared as a host of the popular Russian TV show "Black and White" where his partner was Maria Gaidar, the daughter of the late Russian Prime Minister, Yegor Gaydar. Kashin also has been reporting on the highly debated project to build a highway through the popular Khimkinsky forest in Khimki suburb of Moscow. His bold reports and articles against lawlessness and crime in today's Russia caused Kashin numerous problems with some powerful political forces. Eventually Kashin was censored and blacklisted by the Russian authorities. In the Summer of 2010, Kashin had a conflict with the Governor of Pskov, Andrei Turchak, who is a crony of Vladimir Putin and son of a powerful industrial tycoon. The conflict culminated as the Governor of Pskov, Andrei Turchak, made threats to Kashin and wrote an angry comment in the Governor's web page, saying that Kashin shall be punished. In October 2010, Kashin was accredited by the Kommersant to attend and report about the rock-music show where some Russian musicians were meeting with the Russian president Dmitry Medvedev. Kashin was stopped by the presidential security and was banned from attending the show on the grounds that he is blacklisted. On Friday night, November 5, the journalist was on his way home in central Moscow after a long day of meetings. At midnight he bought a new cell phone - a gift for his father who was waiting at home. Approaching his apartment building shortly after midnight, he did not know that he was followed. A few minutes after midnight, on November 6, 2010, Oleg Kashin was assaulted by unknown attackers near his home. Since his attackers did not take his money, or cell phone, or identification, no one doubts that the reporter was attacked for professional reasons. Russian police are treating the attack as a case of attempted murder. Several security cameras recorded the attack and the video was played on the Russian TV news several times. The video shows two male attackers armed with a metal bar. They hit Oleg Kashin with that bar several times until he fell on the ground, then they continued the beating until the journalist stopped moving. The apartment building cleaner who witnessed the beating and called the police, also reported that a third person assisted the two attackers by providing a getaway car that was waiting nearby. The beating lasted several minutes during which the two attackers hit the journalist at least fifty times. As a result of the beating, the journalist suffered multiple injuries to his head, his hands, his chest, his back and legs. Paramedics reached the journalist on Saturday morning at 12:40 A.M. Kashin was lying outside the door to his apartment building, his face bloodied, his fingers torn, hands twisted and legs mangled. The ground around him was covered with blood. Kashin was hospitalized in the nearest emergency room and by the time Moscow woke up to the news on Saturday, he was already in a medically induced coma. His diagnosis was: a fractured skull at the temple and a heavy concussion, blood in the lungs, a broken jaw, a broken ankle, fingers partially torn off at the joints. Because he suffered more that fifty blows with a metal bar, Oleg Kashin would have died were he not rushed to the emergency room and operated on multiple times. The journalist remained in a state of medically induced coma for ten days until he started seeing visitors. His mouth was still obstructed and disabled due to broken jaw. His wife and his co-workers were shocked by the look of the traumatized man: his face swollen, his speech impaired, his hands and fingers badly damaged and one finger torn off, so it had to be amputated. Kashin's colleagues said that the beating job was professional as the nature of his wounds is highly symbolic: "you won't talk, you won't walk, and you won't write." Solving this case will be seen as a test for just how serious the Kremlin really is about clamping down on crime in Russia and specifically on the intimidation and killings of journalists, such as the murders of notable Russian journalists: Vladislav Listyev, Yuri Shchekochikhin, Paul Khlebnikov, Dmitri Kholodov, and Anna Politkovskaya to name just a few. Kashin's case resembles an earlier one. In the spring of 2008, Mikhail Beketov, a local journalist in Khimki who exposed the corruption behind the road, was beaten and left unconscious and bleeding in front of his house. He too slipped into a coma. There are eerie similarities between this attack and Kashin's: Beketov's legs were so brutally beaten that one had to be amputated, and he suffered such severe brain damage that he can now barely speak. But his hands were the most symbolic, chilling target. Three of Beketov's mangled fingers had to be amputated. Whoever got Beketov, and whoever got Kashin, wanted to make sure they never wrote again. Russian journalists are usually killed or attacked because their publications threaten powerful political, financial or economic interests. The chopping down of the Khimki forest to make room for construction of a new highway between Moscow and St. Petersburg has exactly those interests behind it. Oleg Kashin's publications about the Khimki forest destruction, or about the Governor of Pskov and his dealings, or about the "Nashi" movement, were among the likely reasons for the bloody attack on the journalist. Kashin underwent several surgeries and spent a month at ICU. There he was guarded by two special agents 24/7 and was interrogated by Federal detectives upon the order from president Dmitry Medvedev. The only interview with Kashin in hospital bed was taken by Leonid Parfyonov and aired the video. During the interview Kashin remained bedridden, his speech impaired, his legs, hands, face and mouth badly damaged. In December, after a month of surgeries, he was moved to another hospital for post-surgical treatment. There, at another hospital, Kashin met Christmas and the New Year 2011. Although he regained some mobility and began using crutches, he cannot be without assistance for a long while. Aleksei Simonov, president of the Glasnost Foundation, announced a list of 300 people killed in so called "information wars" in Russia. Ninety percent of journalists' murder cases remain unresolved.