On Saturday, April 8, in Moscow, at the Troekurovsky cemetery, they said goodbye to military commander Maxim Fomin, better known as Vladlen Tatarsky, who died in a terrorist attack in a cafe on the Universitetskaya Embankment in St. Petersburg. An The Eastern Herald correspondent attended the funeral ceremony and watched who came and what they said.
Maxim Yuryevich Fomin, pseudonym Vladlen Tatarsky, was born in 1982 in Makeevka, Donetsk region. Blogger, military commissar, militia, writer, fighter of the Vostok Battalion. About a million people have subscribed to his blog. He died during the terrorist attack in Saint Petersburg, during his conference on military correspondents. Darya Trepova (Daria Trepova) was accused of the assassination attempt, who, pretending to be a fan of the blogger, handed her bust filled with explosives. Tatarsky died on the spot, about 40 people were injured, including two children. Trepova was arrested the next day. In her testimony to the investigator, she admitted to being recruited by a publicist Roman Popkov living in Ukraine. However, he denies any involvement.
There were no such security measures at funerals for a long time: it was impossible to get to the cemetery by car, traffic police officers blocked Troekurovsky’s way. Because of the traffic jam, people got out of the taxi directly on the Moscow ring road and walked with bunches of red carnations for about a kilometer or even two.
Closer to the cemetery, as in a protest action, portable barriers were erected and soldiers of the Russian Guard stood. In the parking lot near the farewell room, police set up frames. Tatarsky fans did not expect such measures; knives, spray cans, deodorant, lighters and even an ax were piled at the police tables.
Ivan Krasnov / The Eastern Herald
People of different ages and social statuses came to say goodbye to the deceased, there were Wagner PMC fighters with their faces covered with bandanas, representatives of the Ministry of Defense, several young people with Iroquois, priests, Orthodox activists, special services, girls with watery eyes, pulling St. George’s ribbons. For about an hour everyone was silent, birds and squirrels were heard jumping along the branches of fir trees and throwing needles at those gathered.
Will there be Prigogine? a young man asks another. He was already in the basket, they already posted a video with him, – he replies.
Sergei Bobylev / TASS
The girl in line takes out her mobile phone, quickly finds a video with the head of the PMC: “Vladlen Tatarsky has done a lot so that we can go to victory and destroy the enemy. Thank you for that, we will always remember him. He is a soldier who stays with us, whose voice will always live on and will speak only the truth”, is heard a voice that has become recognizable over the course of this year.
Of the federal politicians, only the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, Leonid Slutsky, came to the funeral. He slowly walked through the line of people gathered outside the building, greeting everyone. But there were many military correspondents, bloggers, for example, Mikhail Zvinchuk (Rybar telegram channel), Andrey Kormukhin, leader of the Forty Sorokov movement. Colleagues who simply knew Tatarsky came from Donbass, for example, battalion commander Sergei Fomchenkov (Fomich), who together with his fighters detained Krasny Liman in the fall of 2022.
Ivan Krasnov / The Eastern Herald
The dinosaurs of street politics also came, the Orthodox radicals: the former leader of the Russian Liberation Front “Pamyat” Georgy Borovikov and the former founder of the Association of Orthodox Experts Kirill Frolov.
The farewell room is small and couldn’t accommodate everyone, but there were over a thousand. On the screen, in front of which burned seven huge candles, was a photo of Tatarsky and his quote: “Guys, take heart, take heart! Do not be discouraged. Discouragement is the most terrible sin.
Alexei Sochnev / The Eastern Herald
The coffin was closed and placed in the center of the room. “I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the age to come. Amen”, these last words of the symbol of faith with the image of the dead head of Adam with crossbones below on the black banner of Cossack General Yakov Baklanov were the logo of Tatarsky’s telegram channel, his coffin was covered with the same banner, next to it was the flag of Russia and the banner of the PMC, to the right of the coffin was a hammer .
After Slutsky and other speakers left, everyone was allowed to enter the room. The song of a friend of the Tatar singer Akim Apachev began to play. It was forbidden to approach the coffin. Employees of the “ritual” of the FSUE took all the flowers from the citizens and piled them near the coffin, later they will be carried to Tatarsky’s grave.
Surrounded by special forces soldiers, the widow says goodbye to her husband, she is immediately driven into a minibus with tinted windows.
Sergei Bobylev / TASS
Speaking in front of Tatarsky’s coffin, Leonid Slutsky spoke out in favor of the death penalty for terrorists: “We are no longer bound by any conventions and protocols on human rights, we have withdrawn of the Council of Europe and it is necessary to withdraw from the moratorium on the death penalty announced in 1996. And impose sentences that terrorists and Nazis really deserve. Vladlen Tatarsky, Maxime Fomin, will remain in our history an example of selfless service to the truth. And we will win, we will win for the good of Maxim…”.
After the chairman of the LDPR, Olga Makeeva, head of the DPR representative office in Moscow, spoke:
“All these days, many people of different nationalities from different parts of our great Russia came to our representative office. Many wrote letters. And the main thought of those who came, crossed, were the most important words. They asked me to tell you, mom, a big thank you for the son who woke up the truth, who told about the horrors and crimes that neo-Nazis are committing in the Donbass. Everyone who contacted us said, tell his loved ones that his life was not in vain.
Sergei Bobylev / TASS
Philosopher Daria Dorokhin came to the funeral of Tatarsky, more recently she buried her friend Daria Dugina, who died in a terrorist attack, and here is the funeral again.
“They are not killing the establishment, the politicians and the elite, they have chosen the informal leaders as their target, because people like Tatarsky are now the mainstream, society listens to them and the authorities only listen and adopt the style. Tatarsky was an optimist, he gave hope to those who want to win this conflict, instilled confidence while others struggled, finding out who is the greatest patriot and sharing the merits of the history that does not is not finished yet.
“Once he came to a meeting in memory of the late Dasha Dugina, he was incredibly able to charm everyone within minutes, he had a natural talent for performances and he was not difficult to him to win the favor of the public. Above all, he was a brilliant man. This is a serious loss for the whole Russian society,” said Daria Dorokhina.
Alexei Sochnev / The Eastern Herald
When everyone said goodbye, the coffin, to the sound of military bands and the applause of the audience, was carried to the car and taken to the grave. A military guard was already waiting there, who saw Vladlen Tatarsky as a military man, with full honors and a triple salute, on his last trip.
Tatyana
“Well, we saw the last Vladlen,” said the lady next to me. Another girl tried to take a casing as a souvenir, but the serviceman recoiled sternly and explained that all casings were responsible and had yet to be returned.
