MOSCOW -- The driving habits of Russia's rich and powerful are again being placed under a spotlight following an automobile accident involving a top oil executive in Moscow that left two women dead.
The accident took place on February 25, when a chauffeur-driven Mercedes carrying LUKoil Vice President Anatoly Barkov crashed head-on with a small Citroen carrying two female obstetricians. The two women -- 36-year-old Olga Aleksandrina, who was driving, and her passenger, 72-year-old Vera Sidelnikova -- both died. Barkov and his driver sustained only minor injuries.
Police quickly blamed Aleksandrina for the accident, claiming that she swerved into the oncoming lane and hit Barkov's car. But eyewitnesses have since come forward to contradict this account, saying it was Barkov's Mercedes that was driving in the wrong lane, apparently trying to avoid a traffic jam......
The incident has stoked public anger over how members of the Russian elite routinely violate traffic laws and disregard the safety of other motorists and pedestrians with impunity, usually with the tacit acquiescence -- or in some cases, active assistance of the police.......
Russians have long seethed about how the country's rich, powerful, and well-connected routinely break speed limits, drive in emergency lanes and on sidewalks, and bypass traffic jams with the help of sirens and special license plates.
In December, Anna Shavenkova, the daughter of the head of the Irkutsk election commission, drove her car onto a sidewalk at high speed, running over two women, sisters Yulia and Yelena Pyatkova, killing one and maiming the other.
Police initially did not charge Shavenkova with a crime. But a video later surfaced clearly showing Shavenkova running over the two women, and then getting out of her car, checking it for damage, and making a call on her mobile phone, disregarding the sisters who were sprawled on the sidewalk..............
