Moscow market fire kills 1
MOSCOW – A fire Saturday swept through a sprawling Moscow art market noted for a wide array of Russian handicrafts and Soviet-era trinkets and replicas, leaving at least one woman dead and another injured.
The blaze at Izmailovsky Exhibition market sent a roiling cloud of black smoke over northeastern Moscow as flames leapt from several structures built to resemble traditional Russian buildings, including one topped with the onion-shaped domes characteristic of Russian Orthodox churches.
About two hours after the blaze broke out, firefighters appeared to have contained it from spreading to other parts of the market, but the buildings that caught fire likely would be total losses. Charred log chunks periodically fell from their steel girders.
The Moscow prosecutor’s office said that it suspected arson, news agencies reported.
A woman died from inhaling poisonous fumes, said an official at the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry. Witnesses said a second woman was injured when she jumped from an upper story to escape the flames.
One firefighter complained that their work was hampered by a lack of water at the site.
“Do you really expect there to be hydrants and extinguishers? This is Russia – people don’t give a damn,” said the firefighter, Vladimir Tensky.
The fire reportedly broke out about 1:30 p.m. A man who identified himself as a merchant at the market said it began in a cafe on an upper story of one of the buildings, then spread to an adjacent four-story log-faced building.
For more than a decade, the market has been popular with locals and tourists, who flock there on weekends to buy crafts and Soviet-era memorabilia. In recent years, the log-faced buildings were constructed to resemble traditional Russian homes, and once-shabby stalls have been refurbished to mimic that style.
An array of cafes and stands sell traditional treats such as shish-kebabs, and visitors can watch such shows as a man performing with a trained bear.
Despite the intensity of the blaze, the market was not immediately evacuated, perhaps testimony to Russians’ sometimes cavalier attitude toward safety or a reluctance to surrender the brisk Saturday business.