Pavel Astakhov, Children’s Rights Commissioner for the President of the Russian Federation, has met with teenagers who miraculously survived the storm in Karelia on June, 18. Putin’s official started a conversation with the words “Well, how was your swimming?”
A group of children from Moscow and St. Petersburg who were staying in a holiday colony on Lake Syamozero (northern Russia) went camping in spite of a storm warning. The party had 47 adolescents and four accompanying adults who ignored the worsening weather conditions. As a result, 14 children are dead – some drowned, some died from hypothermia in the icy water. The instructors did not manage to help the persons under care; what is more, they tried to save own necks.
The ombudsman visited young survivors in the hospital. First he asked how the children had been taken from the small islands where they had been ashore. Then he suddenly asked a girl “Well, how was your swimming?” The girl was totally at a loss and did not know what to say, but her doctor said: “Thank God, they survived.” Pavel Astakhov kept smiling.
A storm began when the party was already deep into the lake’s water area and the raft with children and two adults was washed ashore on one of the islands while the two boats were pulled out to the open water where the instructors and the children proved unable to keep control of the boats and found themselves overboard as a result.
A total of thirteen bodies have been found and the search for one more body continues. The rest of the party managed to get to the shore and were rescued later.
The criminal case opened by Russia’s Investigations Committee against five suspects envisions prison terms of up to ten years. After the tragedy the appalling conditions in the colony, i.e. insanitation, poor management, security and documentation problems, were revealed.
