On 31 October 2009 police burst into the restaurant at 12.45am, complaining of "loud music". Tatiana says the last guests had left at midnight and the family were quietly clearing up. The police demanded to see the Litvinenkos' papers. When Tatiana told them her documents were in her flat, a short walk away, one policeman grabbed her roughly by the arm, she says. "I struggled free. He then chased after me and pushed me from behind. I smashed my head on the marble floor. I lost consciousness." She says she suffered concussion. "I felt groggy for days. I had to see the doctor."
The restaurant, La Terrazza, was finally shut down in November. The Litvinenkos were forced to move to a cheaper flat down the coast in nearby Senigallia.
The family say they do not know if the harassment has been authorised at the highest levels. "I thought Europe had 100% rule of law. We discovered in Italy this isn't true. It's connections and the mafia. It's as if we never arrived in Europe but ended up in some Russian province," Tatiana says.
Italian immigration officials have interrogated the family twice. According to Tatiana, they expressed little interest in why the Litvinenkos fled their home in the southern Russian town of Nalchik. Instead, they wanted to know how they had come to Italy and whether their visas had been forged.
