The terrorist Rasul is a former sergeant in the MVD. It’s not a very important character in the book (he gets killed in the first Chapter) but I was interested in what the MVD does and stands for. After a bit of research this is what I found:

According to wikipedia, Answers.com and Reference.com, MVD stands for: Ministrstvo Vnutrennikh Del or the Ministry for Internal affairs. In Cyrillic it is written as: (Министерство внутренних дел).

The Ministry of Internal affairs deals with police matters, suchs as criminal investigations, traffic control, and maintenance of public order. Besides regular police matters the MVD also deals with fire fighting, prision services, car registration and the issuing of passports and visas.

The English home page of the MVD (http://eng.mvdrf.ru/) states that it is now called the Ministry of the Interior.

Resources:

• MVD
• wikipedia
• Answers.com
• Reference.com
• photius
• cyrillic
• Russians Abroad
• Video of MVD finding weapons in Chechnya (Warning, Graphic content!)