IN PAIN: Vitaly Kaloyev visits the grave of his wife and two children. “If he’d invited me into the house . . . ,” he says of the man he killed, "the tragedy might not have happened.” Photo: Sergei L. Loiko / Los Angeles Times
By Megan K. Stack, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
February 2, 2008
VLADIKAVKAZ, RUSSIA -- People in this town know the man with the stooped, halting walk and the burning eyes. They point out his house, and they talk about "what he did" and about how they admire "what he did" and wonder if they too would have the strength to do "what he did."
This is what Vitaly Kaloyev did: After his wife and children were killed in a plane crash in 2002, he stalked the air traffic controller who was on duty - all the way to Switzerland, knocked on the man's front door and stabbed him to death with a pocketknife.
"I don't really take offense at people who call me a murderer. People who say that would betray their own children, their own motherland," Kaloyev said. "I protected the honor of my children and the memory of my children."
By the time Kaloyev walked out of a Swiss prison and made an emotional return to this city spread in the icy shadows of the Caucasus Mountains late last year, his crime had been eclipsed by his fame and a social split over his significance. Some Russians cheer Kaloyev as a national hero, a "real man." Others are appalled by his celebrity status, which they believe highlights the worst tendencies of Russian nationalism.
Kaloyev's story is a postmodern tragedy, a tale of loss and vengeance, but also of clashing cultures -- of the deeply humanistic, man-to-man world of the Caucasus crashing confusedly into the sterilized, legalistic culture of big Western companies facing expensive lawsuits.
Although he says he blacked out and can't remember attacking 36-year-old Peter Nielsen, Kaloyev doesn't deny killing him, nor is he sorry for the man's death. Even in the earliest days of his grief, Kaloyev admits, he fixated on Nielsen, the only controller on duty when the plane carrying Kaloyev's family crashed into another plane in midair. Within two days of the crash, he had tracked down the air traffic controller's name and neighborhood. He knew that Nielsen had two children, and that his wife was pregnant with a third child.
In 2004, after a sensationalistic trial in Switzerland visited by luminaries from his home republic of North Ossetia, Kaloyev was sentenced to eight years in prison. But after high-level lobbying from the Russian government, he was set free three years later on the order of Switzerland's highest court.
When he arrived in Moscow, youths from Kremlin-orchestrated groups lined the roads for a hero's welcome. Back home in Vladikavkaz, sympathetic shop clerks wouldn't take his money. He was named "Man of 2007" by local journalists. And last month, the government of North Ossetia gave the former construction designer a cushy perch as deputy minister of construction.
"When you see him in public, you can see that a real man is walking," said Taimuraz Khutiyev, deputy head of the elders association of North Ossetia. "What he did was very prestigious for the country. . . . It was an act of heroism."
Hundreds of handwritten letters have poured in from all corners of Russia and from the Russian diaspora as far away as Australia.
"You are an ideal for me," wrote Svetlana from Moscow. "If it were up to me, I'd put the entire world at your feet. If more people were like you, the world would be a better place."
Other Russians are aghast. "Murderer named deputy construction minister," ran a headline last month on Yandex.ru, a popular Russian news website.
"We live in a very sick society," said Dmitry Oreshkin, lead researcher at Moscow's Institute of Geography................
Kaloyev celebrates his 52nd birthday with a toast from his cousin Konstantin, right. Some Russians consider Kaloyev a national hero for his actions, while others are appalled at the adulation.
Here in Vladikavkaz, Kaloyev celebrated his 52nd birthday last month. The phone jangled with one well-wisher after the next, officials and dignitaries calling in their respects. Meat fried on the stove, and his family gathered around the kitchen table to drink shots of vodka and glasses of champagne, taking turns rising to their feet to toast Kaloyev.
They toasted him in the name of St. George. They toasted his homecoming, his individualism and the years ahead.
"To your health, Vitaly," the voices rang in the warm kitchen. "To your health."
Editor's Note: Whether one considers Vitaly Kaloyev as a sick criminal or a hero, the Los Angeles, California report makes a heart-touching story of love and hate, reflecting aspects of human psychology of a middle-aged man hit by personal loss.
Read the original report
Copyright 2008 Los Angeles Times
