A relatively minor but bizarre ‘terrorist' act was committed last week when a young man detonated a bomb in a sex shop. Witnesses say the man entered the shop, located on Leningradskoe Shosse late on 5th December,and in the doorway. From there he tossed an explosive device into the store before escaping on foot.

According to Svetlana, the 40-year-old shop attendant, there was a loud and deafening explosion just seconds later, damaging much of the shop's merchandise. Fortunately, the late hour at which the crime was committed meant that the shop was empty. There were no major injuries, Komsomolskaya Pravda reported.

The police are currently carrying out an investigation to figure out what sort of explosive device was used by the culprit. The bomb was said to be the equivalent of 50 grams in TNT, one of the most common bulk explosives.

As yet the young offender has not been caught. Hypotheses as to why he committed the offense vary from moral disgust at the shop to product dissatisfaction to revenge from a former employee who had been sacked.

"I doubt it is anything as serious as that," says Ivan, who now works for an online sex-shop. "I used to work in a store like that and I have never heard of anyone complaining about the morality of it. It's probably some prankster. A moral person would go about it another way, not throw a bomb at the risk of being caught," he laughs.

The police are currently investigating all the possible motives for the attack.

The explosion came five days before a car bomb destroyed a Volvo in Moscow on December 10. The Izmailovo flea market was targeted earlier in November, when a 50 gram bomb exploded outside a café. Nobody was injured. In September race car driver Sergei Zlobin narrowly survived a bomb attack, the device exploded underneath his Mercedes as he switched on the ignition.

By Nathalie Cooper