Mobster Trial in St. Petersburg - a Flash of a Violent Past

[HeSearches]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/14/world/europe/14mobster.html?_r=1&hp

Any comments about the arrest and trial of Vladimir S. Barsukov who has been called St. Petersburg’s “night governor?”   A leader of one of the country’s most powerful criminal syndicates, the one-armed mobster — who has a bullet lodged in his chest from a failed assassination attempt — amassed authority and influence through the bloody gang wars of the 1990s and once rivaled St. Petersburg’s elected leaders for control over Russia’s imperial capital.

Mr. Barsukov is on trial in Moscow, charged with illegal corporate raiding, extortion, fraud and attempted murder, among other crimes. His arrest by itself appears to be a victory for Russian authorities over a remaining vestige of the powerful criminal clans that once held this city hostage at gunpoint.

Mr. Barsukov “is the last of the cohorts of the very authoritative criminal leaders of the 1990s,” said Vadim Volkov, a Russian mafia expert at the European University at St. Petersburg, who has written extensively about organized crime. “Others were either put behind bars, died or were killed.”

Mr. Barsukov’s trial offers a glimpse into a violent period of Russia’s post-Soviet past that has taken on a mythological cast in today’s relative stability. It was a time when a shaky government and an ill-equipped police force stood by helplessly as rival criminal gangs bloodied the streets of major Russian cities seeking control over the wealth spilling from a crumbling empire.

Your comments please. 

[JR]

Wonder who'll fill the vaccuum?

[Bored1]

It will be a chose from 2 or 3 who will fill the void.