The biggest news in that article is flabbergasting - they ACQUITTED the teenager who killed that poor Tadjik girl (I guess I should say "allegedly" - not). Unbelievable.
St. Pete has some definite skinhead/rascist problems. They also have a heckuva lot more emigrants and gypsies than Moscow has. If you walk up Nevskyj Prospekt at night you're encountered by skinheads AND gypsies (not together of course). I was in St. Petersburg a few years back with a TVA scientist (he's black). We were at the train station and this drunk guy came up and yelled some epithats and kicked his suitcase. What the drunk didn't know is we had a couple of Russian navy officers with us. Boy was he sorry.... nothing like a butt kicking AND an arrest.
Back in '99 or 2000 there was a popular song by Zaprehschennye Barabanshchiki called Ubili negra. No one could explain to me if it was parody or what.
I bet that stew bum will think twice about making rude cracks or kicking a man's suitcase in the subway or anywhere else - again :)