What Doomsik is trying to say, “Putin is innocent!”

“And Estemirova’s killers must have believed in Estemirova – believed in her power, believed in the danger she presented to them and their methods”

It presupposes that the murder was done because somebody felt threatened by her, and not because they were offended by her or wanted to use her as a tool.

Not if it was a revenge killing.

I thought I’d share since it’s not something you’re likely to find in our male-dominated Russia-experto-blogo-sphere.

Do Natalia Estemirova’s killers feel like big, strong men?

Estemirova worked in the Caucus, arguably one of the most macho regions of macho Russia. She investigated human rights abuse in Chechnya. Although internationally, consensus has already been reached and “pro-government” figures are thought as the likely culprits, the truth is, this woman could have crossed just about anyone. In a region with a history of war and ongoing violence, plenty of people may have wanted Natalia Estemirova dead.

People are used to seeing Russia as a place with top-down murder conspiracies that inevitably originate in the Kremlin. The truth is, Russia is a huge place that still operates under the saying “the sky is high, the Czar is far” – meaning that both great distances and cultural and ideological barriers make enforcing both the law and private interests in Moscow much different than from enforcing them in, say, Ingushetia, where Estemirova’s body was found. This isn’t to say that Estemirova was a particularly “convenient” person for existing power structures in the Caucus.

What I keep coming back to, however, isn’t the mystery of Estemirova’s death, but that which is most obvious about it. You destroy that which you believe in. And Estemirova’s killers must have believed in Estemirova – believed in her power, believed in the danger she presented to them and their methods – especially when you consider the fact that she was kidnapped in plain sight, a gesture as terrifying as it is symbolic.

Both outsiders and many Russians themselves have a mythologizing approach toward Russian and, in general, Slavic femininity. A “real” Russian woman is beautiful, of course, and, what’s more important, she does not “threaten” a man’s view of himself as fundamentally better. This is a fantasy that is belied by the existence of women like Natalia Estemirova, the ones who, like their male counterparts, can only be subdued with a gun.

http://www.robertamsterdam.com/2009/07/audio_david_remnick_on_natalia_estemirova.htm

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2009/07/david-remnick-natalia-estemirova.html