The amazing adventures of this criminal case in Russia continue. I still haven’t received the formal decision to open the case, but it turns out that after the Main Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation opened it, they sent it straight back to Kirov the very same day. Strange maneuvering: the file was taken from Kirov to the Volga Federal District, and then from the Volga Federal District to Moscow. Moscow opened the case and sent it to Kirov. Apparently this is what they call the “vertical of power” (Russia’s top-down system of centralized authority). They shuffle papers from Moscow all the way out to the provinces however they please. Nothing to be done — I’m going to Kirov, then. Tomorrow I’m being questioned as a suspect. For now, I’m practicing the classic phrase of a Russian person during interrogation.