Columbiners instead of whales: attack in Buryatia school attributed to social networks

''A Molotov cocktail was thrown into my classroom''

Several attacks in Russian schools took place at once in a week, in Perm, Chelyabinsk Oblast and Buryatia.

On 19 January, a ninth-grader of School No. 5 in Sosnovy Bor settlement that is 20 km far from Ulan-Ude came to the educational establishment with an axe and a Molotov cocktail. Now it's unknown how he entered the building, there is no security staff at the entrance – only old porter women. In the school, the boy threw a bottle with the flammable mixture into one of the classrooms, a fire began, the children scattered.

''I was reciting a poem, I was said to sit down because I knew it well. If I hadn't been said and I had recited it completely, I wouldn't have been here now. It all happened in my classroom. A Molotov cocktail was thrown into my classroom,'' one of the pupils of the burnt class told.

The attacker switched to seventh-graders then. He hit a boy at the back with an axe, battered at a girl's head, cut another girl's finger. The teacher tried to protect the kids, covered them by herself but was injured, she got an open head wound.

There was information about several attackers first. Eyewitnesses told about at least two senior pupils. But the police denied this – the teen was alone.

A criminal case on ''Attempted Assassination of Two or More Minors'' and ''Negligence'' opened.

A criminal case on ''Attempted Assassination of Two or More Minors'' and ''Negligence'' opened. Photo: meduza.io

Law-enforcement agencies gave a version about the relationship of armed attacks at the schools in Perm, Chelyabinsk Oblast (we should remind that a pupil stabbed another one with a knife in one of the regional settlements) and Buryatia that happened during one week. It's supposed they could have been in touch via social networks.

Children's ombudswoman: ''It's a terrifying tendency''

A total of six kids and one teacher were injured. An 11-year-old girl is in a critical condition, told the Emergency Medicine Centre in Buryatia.

''One 11-year-old girl is in a very critical state, she's operated now, she has a traumatic brain injury. Another girl has two fingers amputated. The others are in the operating theatre. They all have injuries from cutting and chopping,'' RIA Novosti cites a medical worker's words.

The names of the three injured kids and teacher became known – it's Maya B. 13 years, Aleksandra B. 13 years, Anton K. 13 years and I. Ramenskaya, Russian language and literature teacher, 41 years.

During detention, the teenager attempted to kill himself by jumping from the window. Now he is also in hospital with injuries. It's told it is ninth-grader of the same school 15-year-old Anton Bichivin. Employees of the Russian Ministry of Education and Science and apparatus of the children's ombudswoman urgently headed for Buryatia.

''It's a terrifying tendency. The tragedy in the Perm school took place less than a week ago, an analogous situation is in Buryatia now,'' Children's Ombudswoman under the Russian President Anna Kuznetsova commented on the new attack at school.

''It's a terrifying tendency. The tragedy in the Perm school took place less than a week ago, an analogous situation is in Buryatia now,'' Anna Kuznetsova commented on the new attack at school.'' Photo: progorod58.ru

According to her, after visiting Perm, her apparatus created a set of recommended measures on prevention of similar situations: ''Now we're finding out why corresponding conclusions on the spot weren't drawn, which was the reason for the repeated incident,'' she added.

Due to the incident, Head of Buryatia Aleksey Tsydenov cancelled his visit to Mongolia, upon arrival, he visited the injured kids in the hospital. In addition, Petersburg microsurgeons went to Ulan-Ude to reattach one of the girls' finger that was chopped.

''What will we teach teachers? How to fight with an axe or a knife?''

Realnoe Vremya surveyed experts about the reasons for more frequent attacks on Russian schools. In the talk to our reporter, First Deputy Minister of Education and Science of the Republic of Tatarstan Ilsur Khadiullin said that, for instance, 192 million rubles were needed at Kazan schools to tighten security measures (organisation of day security).

Speaking at a meeting of the prosecutor's office, the Tatarstan president also urged to pay attention to the dangerous tendency too. Rustam Minnikhanov stressed that the incident also has a mistake of state authorities.

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  Rustam Minnikhanov Tatarstan President

  We all remember cases when kids and teenagers were incited to commit suicides via social networks and on the Internet, which caused a huge public outcry last year.

  Security provision of the youth is a priority for us and, first of all, requires adopting a set of preventive measures. For instance, the latest events that took place in Perm and Ulan-Ude. Of course, we fail somewhere. It's important to coordinate all related bodies of authorities and organisations of the republic with the children's ombudswoman to fulfil the integrated plan that was created.

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  Ilsur Khadiullin First Deputy Minister of Education and Science of Tatarstan

  We're raising this problem. I can't say for sure, ''Yes, we've solved it'', this issue is on the agenda. It's our main task to provide security. There are problems linked with the organisation of normal, good, full-fledged security in educational establishments. There are different options at the moment. There are schools where security is provided thanks to their own money that are presupposed in an educational organisation's cost sheet. There are schools that organise day security thanks to other sources – parents' money, sponsors. The approach should be one, and we're working right on this issue.

  It's a set of problems – the lack of education, teaching, the Internet, the media because we all need to educate people. We need to have good TV programmes in the evening aimed to educate people, not just a cry, noise, yell. Sometimes you go home in the evening and see eternal negativism on TV. The more positive news is neede, to tell, show, so that kids will be involved in watching good programmes.

  Of course, parents need to care about their kids, so that they won't go the virtual world. We don't need a programme to distract kids from the virtual world – it's impossible. If a parent comes home and minds his business, the kid is in his room in front of the computer or with a phone, there is no communication, everyone is in the virtual world. Here is the result – aggression appears. We need to unite efforts to take the kids from the virtual away, to have more communication in the family, to visit plays, concerts, sports events more, go out, talk. We need to return to it. Education's mission is to teach and educate, it's a targeted job with parents and kids, so that parents will have a possibility to talk to their kids. Unfortunately, what's happening is the result of immersion in the virtual world.

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  Valentina Sochneva famous Russian teacher, former director of Quantum School of Mathematics and Physics

  The teachers absolutely correctly started to protect the kids. What can they do? It's useless to prepare teachers deliberately for such situations. What will we teach them? How to fight with an axe or a knife? We just need to protect schools from possible intrusion of such attackers. Nobody examines their own pupils at the entrance, of course. What about teachers? Don't they feel that anything strange is happening to these kids? First of all, it's a problem of parents and those teenagers who are ready to do such 'deeds'. Where does it come from? Normal children won't behave like that. God knows how to prevent it. There is a saying: '´´'A dog bites when it has a rotten life.'' Something bad happened in these teenagers' families, at school. One needs to follow, feel that something goes wrong.

• Regina Khabirova teacher and psychologist in Trust centre

  Of course, the relationship between these attacks is seen. Now everything is available, everything is on the Internet, children watch. Usual teenagers react to such messages with fear, they're afraid. But kids are different, some of them express aggression and cruelty. Communication in social networks probably was the motive. Now there are many groups dedicated to this topic. Do you remember death groups, Blue Whales and so on? Here is the same thing. It seems that kids really talk in such groups in social networks because these incidents are very similar and happen in different parts of Russia. This is why parents need to pay more attention to their kids, look what groups they are in, talk to them more and forge the relationship because such teenagers, as a rule, feel they were abandoned.