ST. PETERSBURG – The following is the second of a two-part series, the first of which ran on 31 August 2001.
After the “Kursk” submarine sank last year in the Barents Sea, killing all 118 crew members aboard, the Russian government agreed to pay relatively large death benefits to the families.
Each family got an apartment and 720,000 rubles — more than $20,000 — in compensation.
Captain Igor Kurdin, the head of the St. Petersburg Submariners Club, says he believes it is the first time the Russian government provided adequate compensation for victims of a tragedy.
But he, like many other Russians, questions the fairness of the payments.
Kurdin said that families of sailors who died in other submarine accidents, for example, did not receive any compensation. He says those families are finding the “Kursk” payments hard to accept.
“It is the first time in our country that the family of someone who died in the line of duty received decent compensation. But what is going on now with the families of the ‘Kursk’ makes other families feel bad. As an example, I can cite the families of submariners who died in accidents before the ‘Kursk:’ the ‘APL Komsomolets’ that sank in 1988, ‘K219′ that sank in 1986, and many others. They didn’t receive a penny from the state.”
The payments to the relatives of “Kursk” victims are especially galling for the families of soldiers killed or wounded in the war in Chechnya. They point out that, while the government does pay out death benefits, the amounts are paltry compared with what relatives of the “Kursk” victims received.
Svetlana Filipova works for the Mothers’ Rights Foundation, an organization that assists families of Russian soldiers and sailors who die in the line of duty. She says that, according to the law, the family of a soldier who dies in Chechnya receives a standard, one-time payment of 120 times the serviceman’s monthly salary. At current pay levels, this represents a benefit of about $2,500, to be divided among the family.
In addition, she said that each family member receives an individual payment of 25 times the serviceman’s monthly salary, or about $600.
Last year, the foundation — citing the discrepancy with the “Kursk” payments — accused the state of discriminating against those who lost their relatives in Chechnya. Lyudmila Yefimova from Moscow lost her son in Chechnya. She said that she has asked the state many times for help, but that officials have told her that she is simply seeking to use her son’s death to get her apartment repaired.
Yefimova said that it is difficult to survive on her monthly pension of around $40, and that the government has forgotten the mothers of the servicemen who are dying in Chechnya. “The federal government didn’t give us any help. I mean Putin. Furthermore, local authorities are very rude to us,” Yefimova said.
Captain Kurdin said the issue of compensation is not clear. In his opinion, the issue is not one of discrimination but simply the fact that the Russian government cannot help all of the families of those who die in uniform.
He said that, ironically, the relatively generous “Kursk” compensation packages have not inspired gratitude among the families of the victims, but rather have made them suspicious that the government is trying to hide something regarding the cause of the accident.
“Sometimes you have a feeling that the authorities are trying to buy the ‘Kursk’ families to pay for their silence. But it is easier for the government to help only the families of the ‘Kursk’s’ crew than all the families of those who died in the line of duty,” Kurdin said.
The Mothers’ Rights Foundation said that families of officers killed while serving are often put on a waiting list and have to wait years before getting an apartment.
In contrast, Svetlana Baigarina — the wife of “Kursk” victim Captain Murat Baigarin — received a three-room apartment in St. Petersburg following the submarine disaster. However, relatives of “Kursk” victims point out that, whatever their amount, death benefits cannot ease the pain of losing a loved one.
Baigarina said that she and her two children still live in her parents’ apartment, and that her 11-year-old son Sasha does not want to move to the new apartment.
“Nobody wants to go to live in the apartment that we received,” Baigarina said. “It is hard. My young son says, ‘I don’t want this apartment that we paid for with daddy’s death.'”
