Irina Dudukina, speaking for the Interior Ministry’s Investigative Committee, said investigators did not know Hermitage lawyer Sergei Magnitsky was ill, and that his death was ‘completely unexpected‘.  Activists in Nizhny Novgorod held a ‘funeral for democracy‘ this week to mark the city duma’s decision to have mayors elected by a group of deputies, instead of by popular vote.  Boris Kagarlitsky writes in the Moscow Times about the rising number of ideological arguments being solved with firearms attacks in Russia.  Media freedom campaigners are concerned that the attention garnered by Alexei Dymovsky’s YouTube video, which led even Boris Gryzlov to call for an inquiry into his claims, could lead to more zealous monitoring of the web in Russia.