On 19 January 2009, Stanislav Markelov and Anastasia Baburova were murdered. Every year since, Russian anti-fascists hold a march in their memory. Source: anatrrra / Livejournal.
Ten years ago, Stanislav Markelov was murdered in Moscow. He defended anti-fascists and ecologists, mothers trying to defend their sons serving in the army and citizens of Blagoveshchensk brutalised at the hands of the riot police, the relatives of Elza Kungayeva (murdered by a Russian soldier in Chechnya) and journalist Mikhail Beketov, who was brutally assaulted for covering the construction of a new highway near Moscow. That day in January, the Neo-Nazis also killed his companion Anastasia Baburova, a like-minded journalist. The killers were eventually sentenced to long prison terms. Some of their friends and sympathisers are now working for government bodies or pro-regime mass media, whereas others have fought and still fight on both sides of the conflict in Ukraine. As a figure, Markelov feels so necessary in Russia today, yet so hard to imagine.
