A child died while riding down a hill in the Leningrad region. "Komsomolskaya Pravda", 17 September 2017

An icy attraction 

The tragedy happened last winter, but it has become known only now after it became public. 

Resident of Vsevolozhsk Sergey Nesterov and his eight-year-old son Kolya went for a walk in the evening on 22 February. They walked towards a local school. There were a skating-rink and winter wooden roll-coasters several meters high covered with ice. 

The child went up the stairs, squatted down, started moving, gained speed, and... Somebody stretched a hardly seen tight steel chain across the way at the very bottom of the slope. Most probably, the boy stumbled over it, fell head over heels and badly hurt his head. 

"Kolya lost his consciousness at once. I immediately drove him to a regional hospital and doctors started to struggle for his life. Our boy died two weeks later," - said the boy's father. 

The law-enforcement initiated criminal proceedings according to the clause "Causing death by carelessness". 

Investigators had to find out who and what for stretched the unfortunate chain. 

Bastrykin saw

Alas, detectives were reluctant to solve this riddle quickly. Time passed, but the answers did not appear... Kolya's relatives said that at one point the investigators had completely lost interest in the case. The Nesterov's advocate was threatened that the boy's father would be brought to justice because he had been at the  spot at the very moment of the tragedy (clause "Abandoning an endangered child"). 

The investigation of the case moved from the dead point only after it became widely known. An article with the description of this case under the heading "Probably, Alexander Bastrykin will see..." appeared on the Internet. Reaction was swift. In the evening of 16 September the news entitled "Alexander Bastrykin has seen..." appeared on the website of the Investigation Committee RF. 

Head of the IC was outraged by the red tape in the case of death of the child. He promised to  take the situation under his personal control and speed up consideration of the case. 

"KP" follows the latest developments 

Direct speech

"Alexander Bastrykin is always very attentive to the information about child abuse in mass media, especially about unlawful actions of his subordinates. 

If infringements in actions (lack of actions) of his colleagues from the 47th region are found, they will be given a principled legal assessment in strict accordance with the current legislation". 

(Svetlana Petrenko, official representative of the Investigation Committee RF)

Call to advocate 

"We hope that the process will develop faster from now on. Nevertheless, we will have to keep an eye on the investigator's work - he/she may report to the authorities that the investigation has become vigorous and measures have been taken, but, at the same time, accuse no one and wait till the row is played down," - told "KP" an advocate, Head of the Criminal Legal Practice of the attorneys at law Pen & Paper Aleksey Dobrynin who helps the Nesterovs free of charge. "We know who hung that very chain - a man who positions himself as head of one of the youths' clubs in Vsevolozhsk. But he denies his connection to the tragedy, although he admitted before the initiation of the criminal proceedings that it had been he who had stretched the chain."