Shortly after midnight, a group of three young people described as skinheads set upon the man and the woman, both in their forties. The couple were employed as street cleaners, RIA Novosti reported.

Police have said the murder was either a racial attack or a particularly violent robbery.

Routine attacks by skinheads and far-right groups on foreigners and people with ’non-Slavic’ features have been reported across Russia in recent years. Some of the worst cities for racist attacks are Moscow, St. Petersburg, and the central Russian city of Voronezh.

2008 has seen another rise in the number of attacks on people of Central Asian origin in Russia. In February, the Kyrgyz embassy in Moscow sent an official note of protest to Russia’s Foreign Ministry, Interior Ministry and the Prosecutor General’s Office protesting at the murders of at least four Kyrgyz nationals in Russia since the start of the year.