Deadly subway bombing spreads fears in Russia
MOSCOW -- As a subway train pulled into a station, the young Russian woman on the platform peered inside the cars, scanning the faces of passengers for signs of a threat. She stepped in just as the sliding doors were about to close.
The deadly bombing in a packed train Friday has spread fear of Moscow's long-trusted transportation system, turning the daily routine of riding the subway into a game of Russian roulette for many Muscovites.
"I can't help looking around to check for anybody suspicious," Marina Shelestova, a 27-year-old office worker said yesterday. "Even though I think that if I saw a real terrorist, I wouldn't know it."
Police described the explosion that killed at least 39 people and injured about 130 more as a terrorist attack. President Vladimir V. Putin accused separatist rebels from Chechnya, who had claimed responsibility for many previous bombings, in a remark that heightened many Muscovites' suspicion of darker-skinned natives of the Caucasus region.
Authorities erected a security cordon around the city yesterday and stepped up spot identity checks on the streets. Mayor Yuri Luzhkov ordered a day of mourning in the capital tomorrow, when the dead will be buried.
Friday's explosion was not the bloodiest Moscow had seen in recent years, but it struck a blow at the city's lifeline.
Moscow's subway is more than a transportation hub. It is a landmark, boasting columns and walls of yellow and pink marble, mosaics, and statues. It is a city map, as most Muscovites give directions citing the nearest subway station, not the street name. It is a shelter that protected thousands of people from Nazi bombs during World War II, and a facility listed as a major bomb shelter in the Soviet Union's defense plans.
The subway is also the most efficient way to get around the sprawling city. Moscow streets, never intended to handle heavy traffic, are constantly clogged, buses run on irregular schedules, and taxis charge hefty prices by Russian standards for slowly navigating through traffic.
Moscow's subway carries 8.5 million people every day, and for many, it is the only way to get to work and back home.
But security is lax, despite a series of bombings that have killed more than 200 people in Russia since December 2002. Billboards have been recently put up on subway walls urging people to report any unattended bags, and announcements of station names are followed by a reminder not to leave belongings behind when getting off the train.
But no bags are ever inspected, bomb-sniffing dogs are nowhere in sight, and the task of maintaining order falls almost exclusively on middle-aged female employees sitting in glass booths at subway entrances, warding off drunks with angry diatribes and trying to stop people who want to sneak in without paying.
The subway is most vulnerable to an attack during rush hour, Yevgeny Savostyanov, former chief of the Federal Security Service branch for Moscow city and region, told Ekho Moskvy radio. And the effect of a bomb going off in the enclosed space of a tunnel is several times more devastating than that of a blast in open air, according to explosives specialists.
Many victims of Friday's bombing were regular commuters, riding to work during a rush hour on a popular subway line.
Nikolai Sidorov, whose 25-year-old daughter, Viktoria, suffered multiple cuts to her face in the blast, said the two of them rode the subway every day but he needed to be at work an hour earlier, and escaped the bombing.
"And then my wife called, and said: `Call Vika, I can't reach her, and she was riding the subway at that time [of the explosion]. And then Vika called me herself."
But millions of Muscovites have little alternative to venturing into the dangerous underground every morning and evening. "I can avoid going to big stores, and I can avoid going to rock concerts," said Olga Maximova, 25. "But I can't avoid taking the subway."
