Putin Calls for Calm in Wake of Bombing

Officials rushed to reassure Russia’s fearful capital Wednesday, a day after a downtown explosion killed seven people and reawakened memories of a 1999 bombing campaign that left hundreds dead.

President Vladimir V. Putin urged Russians to remain calm, saying that “hysteria and disorganization [would be] the best gift for terrorists.”

But worries were heightened when authorities found a bag filled with 9 pounds of TNT and seven detonators in an office at Moscow’s Kazansky railway station Wednesday. The explosives were not wired for detonation, but police were investigating a possible link to Tuesday’s bombing.

The bombing under Pushkin Square, which injured 93, came 11 months after a series of apartment building blasts that killed 300 people in several Russian cities. The attacks were widely blamed on militants from Chechnya, the republic in the southern Caucasus where separatists are fighting Russian troops.

On Wednesday, investigators announced that two suspects--one from Chechnya and one from neighboring Dagestan--had been detained for questioning in Tuesday’s bombing. They later said the men had been cleared of involvement.

Especially anxious were those working in Moscow’s underground passages and in outside markets, where a bomb could be left unnoticed amid the crowds and refuse. Underground passages are unavoidable in many parts of Moscow, providing the only way to cross traffic-choked streets up to 12 lanes wide.