Slain Russian TV Star Is Buried Amid Grief, Fury

Russians buried the most beloved victim of their post-Soviet crime wave Saturday amid an outburst of politically charged grief and an open feud between President Boris N. Yeltsin and the mayor of Moscow over who is to blame.

After three days of mourning in which tens of thousands of people brought flowers to his coffin, slain television personality Vladislav Listyev was laid to rest in a Moscow cemetery beside a larger-than-life photograph of him in his spectacles and Larry King-inspired suspenders.

Women pressed their lips against the black-framed picture. Men wept. First Deputy Prime Minister Oleg N. Soskovets railed against “barbarianism in our own home.” A rock star urged people to stop paying taxes and spend the money to arm themselves.

Not since the 1989 death of Soviet dissident Andrei D. Sakharov have so many Russians mourned. Like his funeral, Listyev’s had a somber undercurrent of popular protest--this time against the authorities’ failure to stop crime. The television star was buried next to Vladimir Vysotsky, a Soviet-censored actor, poet and singer whose funeral in 1980 was also a display of mass discontent.

Listyev, 38, a witty, charismatic journalist and talk show host who was to have transformed the state-owned Ostankino network into Russian Public Television by April 1, was shot to death Wednesday night in the entryway of his Moscow apartment building.

He was the second high-profile journalist to be slain in Moscow in five months and the latest in a harrowing series of mob-related assassinations of wealthy business people, bankers, entertainers, sports figures and members of Parliament.

Police issued sketches of two suspects in the apparent contract killing. Speculation about who ordered the crime centered on mafia middlemen who stood to lose their take of advertising income in Listyev’s restructuring.

With presidential elections 14 months away, Russian leaders performed spin control on the national grief. Speaking to Listyev’s colleagues Thursday, Yeltsin accused Moscow city authorities of “turning a blind eye” to mafia infiltration of business and government.

While acknowledging his own failings in the war on crime, he said that the city’s chief prosecutor, Gennady Ponomarev, and its police chief, Vladimir Pankratov, should be fired.

Mayor Yuri M. Luzhkov, widely viewed as an undeclared presidential rival, called Yeltsin’s statement “an emotional outburst” and opposed the two men’s dismissal.

Both law enforcement officials are far more independent and critical of Yeltsin than the heads of the Federal Counterintelligence Service and the Interior Ministry, who are charged with fighting crime across Russia. Ponomarev angered Yeltsin’s loyal federal prosecutor by quashing his proposed lawsuit against former Vice President Alexander V. Rutskoi, a bitter Yeltsin foe.

Luzhkov said Saturday that he had telephoned Yeltsin and asked: “If Ponomarev and Pankratov are fired, who will be the first to applaud? The gangsters against whom they were struggling.”

And in his graveside eulogy, the mayor said pointedly: “This terrible crime will change none of the decisions that are being taken and will be taken. . . . Now we will refrain from harsh words. We will say them in another place.” Yeltsin was not present.

Late Saturday, the police chief and prosecutor still had their jobs. Russia’s Independent Television said Yeltsin had agreed to let them stay if they meet a deadline for solving Listyev’s murder. The television report, attributed to unnamed Kremlin sources, did not specify the deadline.

Mourners who trudged through puddles of melted ice on a balmy spring day to get to Vagankovskoye Cemetery said they were disgusted by the political sideshow. “They are not capable of doing anything except using tragedy for their own advantage,” said Alexander Minkin, a leading journalist.

“What does the Moscow prosecutor have to do with this crime?” asked Alexei Katkov, 15. “Yeltsin should start by firing himself if he really wants order in the streets.”

Six classmates who came with Katkov to the cemetery in punkish outfits and black T-shirts bearing the name Alisa, a Russian hard-rock band, grunted in agreement as they passed around a cigarette. “The leaders cannot catch any serious criminals because they are all criminals themselves,” the teen-ager added.

The killing and the Kremlin’s high-profile attention to it have at least helped Yeltsin push into the background his messy assault on separatist Chechnya, where thousands of people have died in Russian bombing and artillery strikes over the past three months.

Crime-busting is an issue Yeltsin feels more comfortable with. Last month, he scored a victory when the lower house of Parliament approved his bill to expand the power of the security services, allowing agents to enter homes, government offices and businesses without prior judicial consent.

But these measures are anathema to Yeltsin’s original democratic reform constituents, who fear a more serious crackdown in the wake of Listyev’s murder, while lawlessness itself has undermined his appeal to more conservative Russians who pine for the Soviet order.

Many at Saturday’s funeral said they had lost faith in Russia’s transformation after suffering at the hands of criminals. Moscow has counted 281 murders this year, ahead of last year’s record rate.

Olga Alexeyevskaya, a 25-year-old translator who traveled across the city to the cemetery, told how she had been assaulted in an elevator by a man with a knife who chopped off her hair and stole her wedding ring.

“Now, especially after this murder, I have very little hope left,” she said, clutching the hand of her 6-year-old daughter, who held a bouquet of tulips for the slain television star.

“Introducing a police state will achieve little if the police force is not staffed with real professionals and properly equipped,” she said. “But that takes money, and here our hopes are even smaller. I don’t see how anything can be improved here. I am at a loss.”