Toronto Star: A gas attack in a St. Petersburg home-supply store on one of the busiest shopping days of the year sickened scores of people yesterday in an incident that police called likely motivated by a commercial dispute or blackmail attempt.
St. Petersburg police spokesman Vyacheslav Stepchenko said the gas appeared to be methyl mercaptan, which smells like rotten cabbage and is both naturally occurring and manufactured for use in plastics and pesticides. It rarely has long-lasting effects.
Seventy-eight people sought medical care: 66 were briefly hospitalized and sent home, officials said.
Most efforts to undermine competitors’ sales in Russia’s sharp-elbowed free market take the form of negative advertising or damaging rumours. Business-related violence nonetheless remains a feature of the cutthroat capitalism that enveloped Russia following the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.
