In 2007, a year before the incident at the apartment building, a third man, a former musician and an out-of-work security guard from Baku, Azerbaijan, who spent his days drinking vodka in the courtyard behind his Moscow apartment, died at his home on October 1. The cause of death was recorded as heart failure. This man’s name was Oktai Gasanov. He was 53. What did these three untimely and seemingly unrelated deaths have to do with us? A lot, according to the Russian authorities. On November 15, 2010, a day before the first anniversary of Sergei’s murder, as I sat in my London office reflecting
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