Crime and No Punishment

摘要

The chill that swept through Moscow's Troyekurovskoye cemetery on Tuesday had nothing to do with the autumn squall stripping golden leaves from the birch trees behind the graves. Anna Politkovskaya, one of the last journalists to regularly criticize the Kremlin, lay in an open coffin, a white, Russian Orthodox ribbon around her head, where three days earlier a hit man had aimed his final bullet. Among the hundreds who came to lay flowers at her side, many felt they were burying not only a friend, a colleague, or a fearless investigative reporter but also their dreams for Russia itself. This is the funeral of a whole era," said Irena Les-nevskaya, a founder of the once independent Ren TV network. "It was an era of conscience, truth, and freedom, and 10 years ago no one could have dreamt it would be crushed."