On September 20, 1997, the most massacre in the modern history of Latvia took place in a potato field 13 km from Iecava. And although it happened at the end of the dashing 90s, when organized crime was still settling scores among themselves or announcing a “sentence” to businessmen, this bloody crime was not a contract killer, a member of a gang of thugs or a bloodthirsty maniac, but an ordinary hunter from the Zemgale hinterland . Yes, and the motive for the crime was not self-interest, but the settling of personal scores because of the land. The result of the massacre – seven killed, the criminal himself, who committed suicide, and four wounded.
land of discord
The cold-blooded and unprecedented in its cruelty crime then shocked the whole of Latvia: the criminal shot the members of one family and their acquaintances from a hunting weapon, who had come on a Saturday autumn morning to collect potatoes on their plot of land. But it was the land that caused the long-term conflict between Yuri Chubarov and his neighbors, the Koshkin family.
Relations between neighbors began to deteriorate in the early 90s, when the Law “On Land Reform in Rural Areas” was adopted in Latvia. Farm “Murnieki” turned out to be on a plot of land that belonged to the Koshkins. And although family members were not direct heirs, this did not prevent them from claiming their rights to the land.
Tags: Massacre potato field years massacre history Latvia place
