Photo correspondent Andrei Stenin: biography and the cause of death

The work of a journalist is always fraught with danger. And probably, the hardest test is a choice on conscience. It is this choice, as a rule, leads in any hypocritical time of honest people to the sacrificial altar of greed. And photo correspondent Andrei Stenin, of course, became one of such victims.

Nugget from the province

Future journalist Stanislav Andrey Alekseevich was born in the Republic of Komi, namely in the city of Pechora on December 22, 1980. His mother, who became a widow in 2012, works at the State Hygiene and Epidemiology Center as a laboratory assistant. Besides him, there were no more children in the family. Craving for journalism, he showed quite early, so he had no questions with the choice of profession. Therefore, after graduating from high school in his homeland Andrew Stenin in 2003 went to Moscow.

Unfortunately, there are no great details about his life before moving to the capital. In open sources there is no data about his preferences, about how he studied at school, what institute he graduated from and what was dictated by the choice of profession, let alone voluntary business trips to hot spots, which he had seen a lot during his short career.

Carier start

Arriving in Belokamennaya, he began to work in the information and analytical publication Rossiyskaya Gazeta. His professional career, Andrei Stenin, whose biography, unfortunately, turned out to be so short, began as a journalist and wrote in the rubric "Society". After that, worked for several years on the Internet portal "Gazeta.ru". He decided to dedicate himself to the genre of documentary photography only five years after the beginning of his career. The works of Andrei Stenin as a photojournalist were mainly devoted to extraordinary incidents, riots, trials and military conflicts.

Freelance work

Andrew Stenin, whose photo has an amazing ability to snatch the very salt of the situation, within a few years has become quite popular in the market of photo correspondence. At the same time he was a freelancer for major international news agencies Reuters, Associated Press, France Press, Russian news agencies RIA Novosti and ITAR-TASS, as well as Kommersant. Andrey Stenin actively worked in the most dangerous hot spots of recent years: in Egypt, Turkey, Syria, Libya, Gaza.

In the staff of the agency "RIA Novosti" he settled in 2009. At the end of 2013, the agency was liquidated, the relevant decree was signed by President Vladimir Putin. On its basis, the federal state unitary enterprise "International Information Agency" Russia Today "was formed." Andrei Stenin - a journalist whose photo was already known - was issued as a special correspondent for a newborn agency.

His work has been repeatedly awarded with awards in the field of professional achievements. His first award he received in 2010, when he won the annual national award in the field of print media Iskra. In the same year, as well as three years later, he was among the laureates of the Silver Camera contest.

Deadly business trip

With the outbreak of military clashes in the South-East of Ukraine, many journalists went to another sudden hot spot. Among such courageous and selfless, there was also Andrey Stenin, who went there last May. Fulfilling the editorial task, he worked in Kiev, as well as in the places of direct armed confrontation - in Shakhtersk, Mariupol, Slavyansk, Lugansk and Donetsk. He worked there for about three months, when communication with him was lost. The last working materials from him were received on August 5 last year. It was known only that on his last trip he was accompanied by Sergei Korenchenkov and Andrei Vyachalo, employees of the Information Corps of the Donetsk People's Republic (DNR).

Missing

Already the next day, different versions of the future fate of the photojournalist began to be voiced. The most obvious and persistent was the version of the abduction of an employee of Russian media by the siloviki of Ukraine. Three days after the disappearance of Andrei Stenin, the agency "Russia Today", referring to its source in the territory of eastern Ukraine, announced the abduction of their employee and formally brought charges against the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU). The Ministry of Internal Affairs of the country opened the case on the disappearance of the photojournalist, but later Kiev did not find the confirmation of the version that it was indeed seized by the SBU.

Meanwhile, his colleagues also began searching for traces of the journalist. It became known that Stenin did not inform his leadership of the specific route of his movement in Ukraine, and after receiving the latest materials from him in Moscow, no one knew where he went. Colleagues said that the photo correspondent generally liked freedom of movement, did not like it when someone pressed on top, did not like to be in the heap of dishwise journalists, which happens very much during press tours. He loved his work, was devoted to it, tried to do it honestly. And the implementation of these principles was not fussed.

The ambiguous position of the Ukrainian authorities

Meanwhile, a week later in official sources there was information that the Russian journalist was under arrest, that the special services of Ukraine suspect him of aiding terrorism. On August 12, said in an interview adviser to the Ukrainian Minister of Internal Affairs Anton Gerashchenko. However, a little later he made a reservation that he did not have accurate information on this account, that he had only assumed such a development of events, and interviewers - the leading Latvian radio station Baltkom - interpreted his words inaccurately. The official asked journalists not to bother him with these questions anymore. In response to these accusations of a bureaucratic official, the radio broadcast a recording of the interview.

His irritation with the incessant questions about the fate of the Russian journalist, Mr. Gerashchenko eventually decided to splash out into the social network. On his Facebook page, he noted that photo correspondent Andrei Stenin is wanted by the Interior Ministry forces, as well as the remaining 300 people who disappeared "during the time of the terrorists' actions." On much more unrestrained statements of Mr. Gerashchenko was provoked by Vladimir Krasnov, better known as a pranker (telephone hooligan) under the name Vovan222. Appearing as an assistant to the leader of the LDPR Vladimir Zhirinovsky, he brought up the conversation on the topic of a journalist. The official, putting forward the next version, suggested that the journalist was killed "with his terrorist friends" in the vicinity of Shakhtersk. Pranker recorded this conversation and published his transcript in the network.

Investigation

The first assumptions about the possible death of the journalist appeared already in the twentieth of August, when the news of the body found in the vicinity of the town of Snezhnoye, which is near Donetsk, passed. Information appeared on the pages of the periodical Komsomolskaya Pravda. Since the moment of his disappearance, colleagues who were on a working trip to Ukraine began his active search. Attack on the trace succeeded employees of the Komsomolskaya Pravda Alexander Kots and Dmitry Steshin. It was these journalists who managed to establish with whom and where exactly Andrew Stenin went before his mysterious disappearance.

However, the employer of the journalist, and the Russian authorities asked not to hurry with the reports, not to make hasty public statements and conclusions, until there is any official information from the Ukrainian side.

Meanwhile, Komsomolka's employees reported that, according to them, Stenin went to the city of Snezhnoye, in the zone of military operations, in the company of two local journalists, whom Mr. Gerashchenko supposedly meant by "terrorist friends". According to one of the militiamen, it was possible to establish that on that day the Ukrainian regular army fired a train from cars on the road to Dmitrovka. They shot not only the military, but also civilian vehicles. The skeletons of the burned-out vehicles were discovered not far from Dmitrovka. In the same place was found Renault Logan, on which, presumably, and moved on that ill-fated day a Russian journalist.

The car found the remains of three people, and in the trunk - professional photographic equipment, lenses, lenses. According to open sources, the cars were first shot from submachine guns and machine guns, and then from the Grad installations. It was also found that after the murder, the journalist's phone was switched on and off several times, moreover, someone came to him from Facebook. Detecting the body argued that the journalists' car was simply burned, and the bombardment by Grad was arranged to entangle traces.

Support Shares

In the meantime, the world community held one share of support for another. Rallies in support of the missing photojournalist were held in Russia, Serbia, Great Britain, Mexico and Argentina. The public showed increased attention to the disappearance not of the first Russian journalist on the territory of Ukraine and demanded from Kyiv not only official statements, but also decisive actions to stop arbitrariness towards feudal workers. Representatives of the OSCE spoke in support of the events, which subsequently moved to the place where the body was found together with the Donetsk investigators. In addition, the representatives of the International Federation of Journalists and the international organization Reporters without Borders categorically enough expressed their opinion.

The agency "Russia Today" itself organized an action demanding the release of the journalist. In addition, on social networks were launched tags FreeAndrew.

Russian version

Officially, the death of Andrei Stenin was confirmed on September 3, almost a month after his disappearance. Director General of the MIA "Russia Today" Dmitry Kisilev reported on his death, referring to the results of the examination. Thus, since the beginning of the military conflict, four Russian journalists have been killed in Ukraine in a few months.

The Russian Investigative Committee, which also conducted its investigation, put forward its own version of what happened. CID reported that a column of cars with refugees moved to Dmitrovka from the town of Snezhnoye. Not far from the destination, the column, which was only civilian, came across an armed detachment, presumably to the 79th separate airmobile brigade of the Ukrainian armed forces. The investigation concluded that the column consisting of ten cars was destroyed by shelling with high-explosive shells and from Kalashnikov tank machine guns. The servicemen of Ukraine examined the place of the incident the next day, where they found Andrei Stenin after a couple of weeks, searched the dead, found the items and again fired the place from the "Grad".

The public demands

Andrew Stenin, whose photo in the professional community was called one of the most impressive, did not manage to, unfortunately, create a family. After his death, only his mother remained from his relatives. President Vladimir Putin brought his official condolences to the mother of the deceased in the performance of professional duties of the journalist on the day of the official notification of death. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, assessing what happened, called the case with Stenin "another barbaric murder," which, in the opinion of the department, "is the work of the Ukrainian siloviki." In its message, the department put forward the demand for Kiev to conduct a thorough investigation. A number of international communities, including UNESCO, issued a similar requirement. Information on the fate of the criminal case on the fact of the death of special corps in open sources is not available.

Andrei Stenin was buried on September 5 in Moscow, at the Troekurovsky cemetery. During the funeral he was given military honors: three volleys of the guard of honor. On the same day, Vladimir Putin signed a decree, according to which, the journalist was posthumously awarded the Order of Courage.

On the same day in New York, there was a photo exhibition dedicated to the tragic events in Ukraine. At the opening of the event, where the photos of Andrew Stenin were presented in large numbers, they honored the memory of the journalist.

In late summer of 2014, a predictor appeared on the Internet, someone Dmitry. He keeps his video diary on youtube.com. "New Nostradamus," as its users dubbed it, expressed its version about what would happen in Eastern Europe in the next three to five years. In questions of subscribers, the question was also raised, the theme of which was Andrei Stenin, the predictions on his account were vague. In particular, he initially said that he "is not present either among the living or among the buried." As he explained later, the confusion of his visions was due to the fact that his body was burnt.