MOSCOW - Angered by their national team's 1-0 loss to Japan in the World Cup, thousands of Russian soccer fans rampaged through downtown Moscow yesterday, burning cars, smashing windows, and attacking police and passers-by. At least one man died in the melee, and dozens were injured.

The trouble started in a square next to the Kremlin, where a large crowd had gathered to watch the contest on one of several big-screen televisions set up in central Moscow. In the closing minutes of the match, with Russia clearly doomed to defeat, unruly fans began throwing beer bottles and overturning cars.

Chanting "Forward, Russia" and other soccer slogans, the fans - most of them teen-agers and young men - swarmed through side streets. They set fires, fought among themselves and attacked firetrucks that arrived.

The Itar-Tass news agency said at least 30 of the injured were taken to hospitals. One man was reportedly stabbed to death on a downtown street. Another, who apparently hit one of the soccer fans with his car, was dragged from his vehicle and badly beaten.

A police officer was also stabbed. His condition was listed as grave last night.

Among those attacked were five music students from Japan, in town for the 12th Tchaikovsky international musical competition, The New York Times reported.

One student reportedly suffered minor injuries. An ambulance was stoned and set on fire, and a doctor riding in it was injured.

Itar-Tass reported that at least 35 cars were damaged on fashionable Tverskaya Street, where windows of many shops were shattered, among them those of Tiffany jewelers and Sbarro pizzeria. Cars were reported burning in front of the landmark Moskva Hotel and the Bolshoi Theater. Russia's national parliament building and presidential administration building were also damaged.

Russian Interior Minister Boris Gryzlov rushed back from St. Petersburg to take control of the response to the violence.

Moscow Police Chief Vladimir Pronin told the Times that no one was killed in the violence. But an Associated Press photographer said he saw a mutilated corpse lying in a street.

Pronin estimated that 8,000 fans were involved in the disturbances, adding that police decided not to make arrests on the spot because they feared provoking the crowd. But Moscow law enforcement officials said they were studying videotapes in the hopes of bringing criminal cases against instigators of the violence.

The RTR television network news showed shouting young men roaming the broad, debris-littered avenues near Red Square, with smoke gushing out of burning cars. The melee lasted for more than an hour, and five busloads of riot troops were dispatched to restore order.

Extra police were posted at the Japanese Embassy, located in an alleyway near the Kremlin, to protect it from vengeful fans.

Youth violence by soccer fans and neo-Nazi skinheads, who frequently attack immigrants, is common on Moscow's streets. But the disturbance yesterday was unusually large and destructive. It appeared to take authorities by surprise: Police took more than an hour to respond in force.

City officials had put up big-screen televisions at the request of soccer fans. But a spokesman for Mayor Yuri Luzhkov said yesterday that the city would dismantle them last night.

"Our fans are unable to watch the championship in a civilized way," Tass quoted one unnamed city official as saying.