The English-language Moscow Times is reporting apparent details of the lives of the two suspects in the Boston Marathon Bombing, brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Tamerlan died in a shootout with police, and authorities continue to hunt for Dzhokhar.
Using information from several sources, including Vkontakte, the Russian version of Facebook, The Times paints a picture of two men "whose family fled Chechnya during the first Chechen war in 1994-96. The family apparently lived in Central Asia before returning to Russia -- this time settling in Dagestan, near Chechnya -- and then moving to the U.S."
While cautioning that it could not confirm that the Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on the Russian Facebook page was indeed the so-called suspect no. 2, The paper said "Two photos on the Vkontakte page show a young man with dark, curly hair. Grainy photos of a bombing suspect released by the FBI show a young man with dark, curly hair."
With several photographs and text, The Moscow Times further reported that Dzhokhar "Tsarnaev's page also said he graduated from "Cambridge Ringe & Latin School" in Boston on 2011. There is a public high school named the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
"Tsarnaev was apparently a star wrestler at the high school in Cambridge, being named on a local news website as a 2011 "Greater Boston League Winter All-Star" in the sport. Wrestling is an extremely popular sport in the North Caucasus, with numerous Olympic champions and medalists hailing from the region.
"His brother, Tamerlan, was apparently also an athlete, participating in national amateur boxing events in the U.S., according to the captions of a photo essay about him at a boxing gym on the website of photographer Johannes Hirn. The captions say Tamerlan's family fled to Kazakhstan in the early 1990s because of the chaos of the first Chechen war, then eventually moved to the U.S. as refugees.
"It was not immediately possible to reconcile the conflicting reports on whether the family had lived in Kyrgyzstan or Kazakhstan, both Central Asian countries and former Soviet republics. But unidentified Kyrgyz law enforcement officials told the Kyrgyz news agency 24.kg that the Tsarnaev brothers emigrated from Kyrgyzstan to Dagestan, apparently in 2001, and then later moved to the U.S.
"Talking about his Muslim faith, Tamerlan is quoted as saying, "I am very religious" and "there are no values anymore." He says his girlfriend, who he is apparently pictured with him, converted to Islam.
"A man named Tamerlan Tsarnaev was arrested for assaulting his girlfriend in July 2009, according to an online Cambridge police report.
Read the full Moscow Times report.
Muscovites and Russians have a particular interest in Chechnya, given the long history of violent relations between Russia and the Chechen Republic.