Many of you may have noticed teenagers dressed up on the streets Tuesday celebrating the last day of high school classes before exams. The celebration, known as the “Last Bell,” is an annual occasion for the soon-to-be graduates to make merry and, yes, get wasted.
At least two of these revelers ended up drinking and partying all night, heading home only after the Moscow metro opened at 5:30 a.m. Wednesday. As they were transferring to a different line at the Tretyakovskaya metro station, however, Denis Makarov and his drinking buddy, Vsevolod, began quarreling. As with many drunken arguments, this one did not end well. At about 6 a.m., Makarov, 18, shot Vsevolod in the head with a rubber pellet gun, Lifenews.ru reported. Luckily, 19-year-old survived the attack and is recovering at the hospital, the report said.
It turns out Makarov’s father is a high-placed official in the Interior Ministry. Vitaly Makarov is the head of the ministry’s center for social programs, Lifenews.ru said. Interior Ministry spokesman Valery Gribakin confirmed the incident but told the web site that the shot had been fired accidentally.
The elder Makarov is “naturally upset, but he does not plan to interfere in the investigation,” Gribakin was quoted as saying.
The suspected shooter, who has been detained, is graduating from the Moscow sports school Sambo-70, whose name is derived from the Soviet-developed martial arts technique that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin practiced as a child before moving on to judo. Alexander Osipovich, a former MT editor and reporter, wrote about Sambo for AFP recently.
The school is apparently still quite proud of a 2002 visit by Putin himself. Its web site prominently features a picture of the national leader and provides a link to “details of the visit.”
There was no mention of the Makarov shooting on the site as of Wednesday afternoon.