Anna Politkovskaya

Anna Politkovskaya, a courageous Russian journalist who made enemies among Russia's official and unofficial power and survived more than one attempt on her life, was murdered in Moscow on the day of president Putin's birthday. She will remain the epitome of what an independent journalist should be.

She was born Anna Stepanovna Mazepa on August 30, 1958, in New York, where her Soviet-Ukrainian parents were diplomats at the United Nations. Her father, named Stepan Mazepa, was a ranking diplomat at the Ukrainian branch of the Soviet Mission at the UN. Young Anna went to school in the USA and grew up in a bilingual environment. In the 1970s she studied journalism and literature at Moscow University, graduating in 1980, with her thesis on Russian poet Marina Tsvetaeva. Politkovskaya began her journalist career in 'Izvestia', a leading Soviet paper of the time, then worked as correspondent for Aeroflot Soviet Airlines, and traveled extensively all over the former Soviet Union. During perestroika and after the collapse of the USSR, she worked for such Russian newspapers, as 'Obshchaya Gazeta', and 'Novaya Gazeta' among others. As a woman living in Moscow, she observed, in her own words, "Soviet Union at its most disgraceful" in the 1970s and 1980s, during the era of Leonid Brezhnev, and never wanted to find herself back there again.

From 1999 to 2006 Politkovskaya published her material in 'Novaya Gazeta' news group, which has such shareholders as George Soros and Mikhail Gorbachev. She was the author of 'Journey to hell. A Chechen diary', an award-winning documentary book in Russian. She was also the author of two books in English, 'A Durty War' (2001), and 'Putin's Russia' (2004). She covered a broad range of topics, such as human rights abuses, brutality in the army, the failures of the judicial system, the problems in the South of Russia, the Caucasus, especially the conflict in Chechnya, and the struggling democracy in Russia. Anna Politkovskaya won numerous awards for her reports and books, including the prestigious Prize for Freedom and Future of the Media (2005), 'Olof Palme Prize' (2004), OSCE Award (2003), "Golden Pen of Russia" (2000), and the "Golden Gong" (2000). She was also awarded for helping mothers of killed Russian soldiers by investigating their cases and representing them in courts.

Anna Politkovskaya had to postpone her reception of award for 'Courage in Journalism' (2002) in Los Angeles, because on that day she received an urgent call from Moscow, where people were held hostage in a theatre. She was asked to participate in negotiations, and she returned to Russia to help in negotiations with rebels who were holding hundreds of people hostage in a Moscow theatre. She had the nerve to enter the Moscow theatre on Dubrovka at the height of the tragedy with hostages. In 2004 she was involved in Beslan school hostage crisis. Over the course of her journalist career, Politkovskaya was a witness in several high profile criminal cases in Russia, such as cases about wrongful deaths of civilians in Chechnya, as well as cases about terrorist attacks in Moscow. She was a fearless, uncompromising, and uncomfortable witness, who had accumulated vast knowledge about the underpinnings of crime and terrorism in Russia. She had the courage to uncover the most uncomfortable truth.

Politkovskaya survived at least three attempts on her life, including a severe poisoning in 2004, that happened when she was on a plane to Chechnya. During the last two years she was limited in her travels there, albeit she continued her search for truth no matter how unpleasant it was. She was a strong critic of the Kremlin policies in Chechnya, including the mistakes of president Vladimir Putin made during the years of conflict. Politkovskaya was killed by several gunshots on Putin's birthday, October 7, 2006, in the afternoon, in an elevator at her apartment building in central Moscow. She had three bullet holes in her chest and one in her head. A "Makarov" handgun and four shell casings were found beside her body in the elevator. Russian TV showed a grainy footage of her suspected followers, a young man and a woman, recorded by surveillance cameras at the nearby supermarket where Politkovskaya was shopping just a few minutes before her death and at the entrance to her apartment building. Two days after the murder of Politkovskaya, according to the official statement, Russian president Vladimir Putin made a phone call to president Bush emphasizing that the "law enforcement organs of Russia will take all necessary measures for the objective investigations into the tragic death of the journalist Anna Politkovskaya." A reward of $900,000 was offered by Novaya Gazeta, the newspaper for which Politkovskaya worked, for the information leading to the arrest of her murderer.

Anna Politkovskaya was laid to rest in Troekurovskoe Cemetery in Moscow, Russia. She is survived by her ex-husband, a well-known Russian TV anchor Aleksandr Politkovsky, and their two grown-up children. Politkovskaya has been mourned by her fellow journalists as well as by freedom-loving people across the world.