How a young conscript became a Russian saint When Yevgeny Rodionov was beheaded by Chechen rebels, he was hailed as a contemporary Russian martyr. Andrew Osborn reports 24 November 2004 At a starkly beautiful hilltop cemetery engulfed in a thick winter snowstorm, pilgrims pray to Russia's most unlikely latter-day saint: a young conscript brutally killed in Chechnya eight years ago. Yevgeny Rodionov was 19 when he was beheaded by Chechen rebels. In life, he was an ordinary boy from an unremarkable provincial town who liked to strum on the guitar, compose poetry and dreamt of becoming a cook. But in...