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Thousands Take to City Streets for Protest

By Galina Stolyarova

Staff Writer

Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times A protester’s path is blocked by OMON officers during a march organized by Other Russia, a coalition of opposition groups, on Saturday. See photo report here.

Thousands of demonstrators gathered on Nevsky Prospekt on Saturday in support of opposition coalition Other Russia for an unofficial event called “a march of dissenters.”

The St. Petersburg police reported Sunday that 113 activists were detained, while representatives of Other Russia claimed several hundred of their followers had been held after clashes between police and protesters.

The demonstrators stopped traffic for over two hours, and chanted “No Police State,” “We Need Other Russia,” “Russia Without Putin” and “This is Our City” in one of the most important expressions of civil opposition to Kremlin policy that Russia has seen since the election of President Vladimir Putin in 2000.

Marchers included old ladies who were falling to the ground as they tried to get through dense police cordons. Strong words were exchanged as younger, more forceful protesters pushed through — often to be thrown into police cars later.

The police broke the rally into several groups but activists eventually forced their way through police cordons and the march spilled onto Nevsky Prospekt.

Other Russia, an anti-Putin alliance, held a similar but smaller event in Moscow in December. Other Russia was created with an eye to the 2008 presidential elections when it hopes to put forward a strong alternative to Kremlin-backed candidates.

The umbrella group incorporates, among others, Garry Kasparov’s United Civil Front, Mikhail Kasyanov’s People’s Democratic Union and Eduard Limonov’s National Bolshevik Party.

The police estimated the number of protesters at Saturday’s march at “more than 2,000.”

Kasparov, one of the leaders of Other Russia, said the number of protesters exceeded 6,000.

The demonstration was by far the largest that Putin’s home town has seen in recent years, with numerous independent eye-witnesses at the demonstration putting the number of participants at around 5,000. During the last five years opposition gatherings have typically managed to draw no more than a few hundred supporters.

Other Russia had planned to march from the Oktyabrsky Concert Hall to city government offices at Smolny but St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko branded the event a “provocation by extremists” and banned it. She called it illegal and sent in armed police.

City Hall had offered to let the activists hold a meeting in a remote area near the Finland Station but the protest groups ignored the offer.

When the protesters departed from their meeting point near the Oktyabrsky at midday, they were immediately surrounded by police cordons.

Activists began to be detained as they tried to force their way through. National Bolshevik head Limonov was arrested before he could even join the demostration.

Many of those who attended the march had been prepared for a tough response from the authorities. City Hall had organised an unprecedented campaign against the event.

Matviyenko appeared on Channel 5 news bulletins on Friday evening denouncing the planned demonstration and warning people not to join what she called “the extremists.” Frequent warnings broadcast on public address systems on street corners and in the metro advised people to stay away.

“Everyone who came here has overcome their fear,” Kasparov, a former world chess champion now devoted to opposition politics, said. “Democracy does not come for granted.”

“I want to live in a free state,” said Olga, a 25-year-old activist. “But I live in a country where the city governor calls civil protest an act of extremism. This is a scary sign. Extremism is a crime, and we are here to voice our concern about freedoms in Russia being squashed by the ruling elite.”

The rally was supported by the local branch of the Yabloko party, and a number of protesters said it was frustration against the ban against the liberal party taking part in upcoming local elections that had prompted them to join the march.

“It was a matter of self-respect for me to come,” said teacher Tatyana Korepanova. “I came to the march to show that I share the concerns about democracy shrinking in Russia at high speed. We are falling back into the Soviet era.”

Boris Shumsky, a 78-year-old pensioner, expressed similar feelings.

“I am a dedicated Yabloko supporter, and I am here because I have had enough of totalitarian regimes in my life,” he said. “The authorities are trying to bring the Soviet Union back. The elections have been turned into a wretched joke, ordinary citizens are treated like slaves with no rights at all, and the only thing that is left to us is to take the streets.”

During an impromptu meeting at Ploshchad Vosstania, Maxim Reznik, head of the Yabloko branch in St. Petersburg, condemned the attitude of the authorities.

“Governor Valentina Matviyenko is behaving like some kind of wayward 19th century feudalist, treating the citizens of St. Petersburg as though they were her own silly servants. Anyone who says a word of criticism is quickly branded an extremist,” Reznik said.

“What has happened in the city today is a provocative act,” Matviyenko told a conference of the pro-Kremlin United Russia party on Saturday. “And it was actually organized by visitors from Moscow. Two train-car loads of extremist youth groups — about 120 people — have arrived. Tell me: who is not happy that the city is developing stably?”

The march was also castigated by mainstream TV channels. ORT called the rally “a clash with police, provoked by hooligans,” and the St. Petersburg edition of a weekly news analysis program on Rossia channel also branded the march organizers extremists.

Neither channel mentioned the content of speeches at the meetings or reported the demonstrators’ slogans, such as “free elections” and the “strangling of liberties.”

“It is much easier to go on Nevsky and make noise, than to win seats in the parliament,” commented the Rossia show’s anchor Alexander Korennikov, apparently referring to Yabloko’s failed efforts to get back to the ballot in the St. Petersburg elections on March 11.

ORT and Rossia praised the police in their news bulletins for “tolerance” but the march’s participants complained about excessive use of physical force by police.

“I could not believe my eyes! We were a peaceful demonstration!” Natalya Yevdokimova, head of the Social Issues Commission of the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly said.

“The police were let loose on unarmed people, and raged against them like zombies. I saw officers beating young people with sticks like mad. That can’t be justified. The protesters did not present any danger. We did not set cars on fire or throw stones at windows. We took to the streets to say that we exist. But that’s not a crime. Civil protest is our legal right, written into the Russian Constitution.”

Even parliamentarians were hit by the police. Sergei Gulyayev, a liberal lawmaker at the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly, returned home with an injured back.

“The police knocked me down and dragged me along the ground for at least twenty meters,” says Gulyayev.

Kasparov and the other leaders of The Other Russia seemed pleased with the turnout. “We felt the support and understanding of the ordinary people. The rally left me with a sense that the new Russia is beginning to emerge,” Kasparov said.

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