Many questions remain unanswered for the relatives

As Russia marks the third anniversary of the Kursk submarine disaster, the country's media reflects a gamut of emotions, from anger to sadness, indignation to resignation.

From scathing attacks on the authorities for their handling of the crisis, to the poignant stories of the victims' families, many different aspects of the disaster emerge.

Moscow's REN TV sets the scene with a report which captures the initial disbelief about the disaster.

"It took some time for the Russians to learn about the tragedy. For several days we believed that at least some of the crewmen could be saved. Today, all of them are remembered."

Vladimir Mityayev, the father of a Kursk sailor and chairman of the Kursk public fund, is among those unhappy with the results of the inquiry into the disaster and who are seeking to take the case before the courts.

"We just want to know who is to blame. We are not bloodthirsty. But he who is guilty should get what he deserves," he told the station

Authorities under fire

The weekly news journal Novaya Gazeta backs the Kursk relatives, condemning the authorities for carrying out a criminal investigation which found "nobody was to blame.

"However, two years of heroic effort by investigators revealed dozens of instances of abuse of office and every possible kind of rule-breaking.

He who is guilty should get what he deserves Vladimir Mityayev - Kursk victims' father

"And we have every ground to doubt the independence of the investigators during the final stage - the stage that failed to establish a link between the admirals' incompetence and the sailors' deaths."

Novaya Gazeta calls for an independent investigation which "might mean that the admirals and officers who have so far escaped liability could yet end up in court".

The tabloid Moskovskiy Komsomolets says that the fact the government was willing to pay 23 million roubles ($756,081) in compensation to the victims' families was probably due in large part to the worldwide media coverage.

"The government was ready to shell out to escape the shame of that fateful delay to the rescue operation," it writes. "Otherwise, they would have paid the same miserable amounts as for those who die in Chechnya."

Disaster manual

Rossiyskaya Gazeta reports that as the Pacific Fleet prepares to hold major exercises, "the Defence Ministry sincerely hopes that there will be no repeat of the Kursk tragedy".

The government was ready to shell out to escape the shame of that fateful delay to the rescue operation Moskovskiy Komsomolets

Since the loss of the Kursk, it continues, "the latest top-secret recommendations on 'How to Behave in a Sunken Nuclear Submarine' have appeared at all Navy fleet and training centres".

In contrast to the sombre nature of many reports, the Defence Ministry newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda on Tuesday looked at the technical aspects of raising the Kursk, noting the operation's success.

"The operation to raise the Kursk, the first of its kind in the world, showed that Russia has the technological and financial muscle, in cooperation with other countries, and can, given the political will, solve any problem."

There have also been stories of grief and suffering told in the pages of the tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda.

Jealousy and pain

"I never thought people would be jealous of me because my son died on the Kursk," says the mother of a Kursk sailor. "I got paid about $30,000. When they found out, the neighbours shunned me. Living in the village became simply intolerable.

The operation to raise the Kursk, the first of its kind in the world, showed that Russia has the technological and financial muscle Krasnaya Zvezda

"I bought my daughter some shoes for school, and the other girls sent her to Coventry. While we were visiting the local town, our shed got burnt down. After six months we could take it no longer, so I used the money to buy a flat in Yekaterinburg."

Olga Kolesnikova is one of the best known of the Kursk widows, whose husband's body was the first to be recovered. His posthumous letter "reduced the whole country to tears", Komsomolskaya Pravda reports.

Olga appeared in a film which featured a home video, showing "a young, beautiful couple madly in love".

But her mother-in-law now says: "Hardly anyone talks to Olga anymore", while colleagues at the school where she works are jealous of the money she earns giving interviews as a "media star".

Little Svetlana was born six months after her father's death, but Warrant Officer Valeriy Baybarin dreamt he would have a daughter and chose the name, with which his widow Irina christened the child.

BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.