The Russian authorities' response to these attacks has been underwhelming. In the worst-case scenario, the victims are blamed.

Minutes earlier, an American student of Korean descent was threatened in the same area, but managed to escape.

Six weeks prior to the murder, an American student with a slightly dark complexion was beaten up, while his assailants shouted "blacks out of Russia." A blond-haired American friend, with whom the student was walking, was left unharmed.

Several foreign students who stand out for their skin color and ethnic origin have been murdered in St. Petersburg in recent years. In April 2006, a Senegalese student, Lampsar Samba, was murdered outside of a nightclub. The alleged murder weapon was a hunting rifle with a swastika drawn on it.

In December 2005, a 28-year old student from Cameroon was stabbed to death by a group of youths. A year earlier, a Vietnamese student studying at the Polytechnical Institute was also murdered.

These — and numerous non-fatal — attacks have been chronicled in a Human Rights First report entitled 'Minorities Under Siege: The Case of St. Petersburg,’ which was released just prior to this summer’s G8 Summit in St. Petersburg.

There are cases in which perpetrators of hate crimes are given sentences for 'hooliganism,' instead of more severe categories of murder.

The attacks, however, are by no means limited to foreigners or to St. Petersburg. Visible Russian minorities, particularly from the Caucus region, are frequent targets of attacks.

In all, the SOVA Center for Information and Analysis, a Moscow-based NGO that monitors hate crimes, documented 31 racially motivated murders and 413 hate-based attacks on people in Russia during 2005.

The problem of inter-ethnic violence appears to be getting worse. Three Russian university students have been charged in an August marketplace bombing that killed 12 — most from Central Asia.

In September, in a town in the Russian republic of Karelia, near the Finnish border, violence erupted after a fight in a café led to the killing of two ethnic Russians, allegedly by ethnic Chechens.

Days later, hundreds of young Russian men, fuelled by alcohol and calls from nationalist groups, stormed through the town. They yelled racist slogans and targeted homes and businesses of Chechen migrants, as well as ethnic Georgians and Azerbaijanis — literally chasing them from the town.

Authorities appear to be more concerned about Russia's reputation than the underlying need to combat ethnic hatred.

Thus far, the Russian authorities’ response to these attacks has been underwhelming. In the worst-case scenario, the victims are blamed. For example, the governor of Karelia, Sergei Katandandov, blamed Caucasian nationals for the situation in Karelia.

Mr. Katandandov stated that they were acting "impudently" and "ignoring the mind-set of the nation." At the same time, he expressed "understanding" for the "feelings of those people who took to the streets."

In other cases, authorities seek to deflect attention from the racial and ethnic nature of the attacks. Too often, they appear to be more concerned about Russia’s reputation than the underlying situation.

For example, soon after the Samba murder, St. Petersburg’s chief prosecutor castigated journalists for their coverage of the incident, calling on them not to encourage "the desire among certain people to stigmatize our city." Other government officials expressed similar sentiments.

Fortunately, it would not be fair to suggest that all Russian authorities ignore these issues. St. Petersburg governor Valentina Matvienko announced that she was personally taking control of the investigation of some of the high-level racist murders.

International education is not only important for spreading cultural understanding, but it is big business for St. Petersburg's cash-strapped educational institutions.

However, engagement of political leaders is too often sporadic and the nature of the response piecemeal instead of comprehensive. It is no doubt a good sign that the perpetrators of the Samba murder were arrested in May.

However, some officials depicted the arrests, which conveniently occurred just weeks prior to the St. Petersburg G8 summit, as an indication that the racial and ethnic problems were coming to an end.

The recent violence in St. Petersburg suggests that this was not the case. Even when arrests are made, perpetrators too often get off lightly.

Human Rights First has documented a number of cases in which perpetrators of hate crimes and their accomplices are given sentences for "hooliganism," instead of more severe categories of murder, "deliberate infliction of grievous bodily harm," or torture.

They also point out that prosecutors rarely invoke special hate crime provisions that allow higher penalties for actions "with a motive of national, racial or religious hatred or enmity." Penalties against perpetrators are often suspended or run from a few months to a minimal number of years.

The Putin government, whatever its democratic shortcomings, has generally avoided openly fanning the flames of ethnic hatred.

The current state of affairs poses many problems for Russia. St. Petersburg’s reputation as a center of international learning and as a cultural capital is fundamentally threatened by repeated attacks on foreign students.

Should current circumstances continue, students will avoid the city and a number of foreign universities that work with St. Petersburg’s well-respected institutions of higher learning may have to reconsider their joint projects.

International education is not only important for spreading cultural understanding, but it is big business that St. Petersburg’s cash-strapped higher educational institutions can ill afford to lose.

More profound are the implications of ethnic and national violence for Russia’s viability as a multi-ethnic state. It is a paradox that Russia has fought so hard to keep Chechnya part of the Russian Federation, but that ethnic Caucasians are too often fair game for thugs and a regular target of police harassment.

The Putin government, whatever its democratic shortcomings, has generally avoided openly fanning the flames of ethnic hatred. However, the risks in Russia are high, particularly as parliamentary and presidential elections approach.

St. Petersburg's reputation as a center of international learning and cultural capital is fundamentally threatened by repeated attacks on foreign students.

The Rodina (Motherland) Party, created by Putin allies to undermine the Communist Party during the last parliamentary elections, has decidedly nationalist and xenophobic tendencies.

So does Vladimir Zhirinovky’s Liberal Democratic Party. Nationalism could become a major factor in the next vote in spite of the wishes of the president. This would be bad news for Russia and for any potential presidential successor.

At this point, however, there are opportunities for President Putin and federal authorities. The president’s power is still at its zenith and, given Russia’s centralization of power, a serious commitment to combat racial and ethnic tension is dependent upon the president.

Putin could choose to make combating racial and ethnic violence a top priority — and, perhaps, one of his legacies. It would be consistent with his policies in that it would strengthen, rather than weaken, the Russian state.

It could also help pave the way for Russia to address one of its most pressing problems — its demographic collapse — by preparing the country for the immigration of ethnic "others."

The Human Rights First report makes a number of recommendations. They include the following:

— That Russian authorities openly address the issue of racial and ethnic violence and unequivocally blame the perpetrators.

President Putin's power is still at its zenith, and he could choose to make combating racial and ethnic violence a top priority.

— That they react immediately and publicly to condemn racist violence and encourage law enforcement to pursue aggressively perpetrators.

— That Russian authorities send clear instructions to public prosecutors to aggressively pursue racist crimes and invoke laws that provide enhanced penalties for such crimes, and that they establish a system for monitoring and collecting accurate statistics on hate crimes and their prosecution.

— That Russia follows the Council of Europe's recommendations to create an anti-discrimination body with an appropriate mandate and resources — which works in close cooperation with the Ministry of the Interior and General Prosecutor’s Office.

The challenges posed by racial, ethnic and religious tensions can prove substantial anywhere. It would be naïve to assume that tensions will soon abate in Russia, given the country’s sheer size and ethnic diversity, its difficult economic situation — and a Soviet legacy in which tensions within the empire were swept under the rug.