Marchers Condemn ‘Coronation’

By Galina Stolyarova

Staff Writer

Published: March 4, 2008 (Issue # 1353)

Anti-Kremlin political coalition The Other Russia held a protest demonstration and a subsequent meeting Monday in reaction to Sunday’s presidential election, which its members perceive as a “coronation” of the Kremlin-backed candidate Dmitry Medvedev.

More than 1,000 protesters, led by former chess champion and head of the United Civil Front Garry Kasparov and National Bolshevik leader Eduard Limonov, marched on Monday afternoon from Oktyabrsky Concert Hall to Chernyshevsky Gardens.

The so-called Dissenters’ March, which had been sanctioned by city authorities, was also supported by the democratic opposition party Yabloko.

The crowd chanted “We Are Not Slaves,” “Your Elections are a Farce,” “Russia is us,” “Freedom to Political Prisoners” and “This Is Our City.”

The National Bolshevik Party has been outlawed as an extremist group since 2007 and all their symbols, including flags, are banned, but its activists have designed a new flag that they used on Monday. The flag has a red background with a white circle and the word “censorship” appearing in bold black capitals in the center.

Coincidentally, Sunday’s election was held on the 91st anniversary of the abdication of Russia’s last tsar, an irony not lost on Monday’s protesters.

At the beginning of March in 1917, Tsar Nicholas II transferred power to the All-Russian Constituent Assembly, ending the 300-year rule of the Romanov dynasty.

Speeches made at Monday’s protest made use of imperial imagery including coronations, autocracy, successions to the throne and even references in connection with Medvedev to the False Dmitrys of Russian history.

False Dmitry is the name given to three mysterious pretenders to the Muscovite throne who emerged from obscurity at the turn of the 17th century, known as The Time of Troubles.

Activists spoke of Sunday’s vote as a shameful and illegitimate act that failed to offer the Russian people a fair alternative and honest competition.

Limonov branded the election “The Great Deception.”

“Russians are very brave people; Russian history has many examples of our courage and our generation will prove it yet again by showing resistance to this unjust regime,” Limonov said. “Just as eight years ago Yeltsin sneaked Putin into Russian politics through the back door, Putin has now swindled us with Medvedev and tricked people into voting for this obscure third-rate bureaucrat who has done nothing for our country.”

Limonov said he was disgusted with what he called the coronation of a stooge.

“We must be able to elect our leader from a circle of worthy politicians who really have experience and who we can judge and asssess by what these politicians have done for Russia,” he said. “It is a question of self-respect.”

Typically for opposition rallies, the demonstration was heavily policed but unlike in previous events, there were no mass arrests or beatings of protesters by the police.

However, Maxim Reznik, the leader of the St. Petersburg branch of Yabloko, was detained under suspicious circumstances on Sunday night as he tried to stop a fistfight outside his party’s local headquarters. Reznik’s fellow politicians complained at the rally that the police have restricted contact between Reznik and his lawyer and maintained a cloud of secrecy around the arrest.

Blaming the Kremlin for creating a climate of fear in Russia, Kasparov stretched his hand and pointed to the hundreds of police surrounding the Chernyshevsky Gardens and blocking the nearby streets.

Public support for Dissenters’ Marches has been modest since the first event was held in December 2006 but the authorities across Russia have been banning the rallies, sending police from other regions to patrol them and setting riot police against protesters. Most of the rallies resulted in police violence against the activists and dozens of protesters being arrested.

On Monday in Moscow hundreds of activists were detained during an attempt to hold a Dissenters’ March in the capital. Moscow City Hall had denied permission for the event.

“The Kremlin claims Putin enjoys a 70 percent approval rating; it claimed Medvedev garnered the support of 70 percent of voters — but if these politicians are so damn popular, why are they so afraid of hearing a critical opinion at a peaceful protest like ours,” Kasparov said.

“This is because their high ratings are based on manipulations and lies, and we stand up to it. The Kremlin politicians are most afraid of free-thinking people, and they dread this narrow stream of dissent growing into a wide river of people’s anger and dissatisfaction.”

The speeches were explosive, full of bitterness, passion and rage. Kasparov branded the Russian authorities as criminal, unjust and illegitimate.

“On Sunday night, national television shamelessly showed Putin, Medvedev and Zubkov heading to some jolly joint to celebrate their victory over us, the Russian people,” Kasparov said. “It is a matter of honor and pride to shake these parasites off our back! And it is up to us how soon we will stop them throwing feasts at our expense.”

Well-known rock musician Yury Shevchuk of the group DDT said at the rally that he stayed at home on Sunday and did not vote.

“I would not call that an election; they gave me no choice as to who to vote for and so I came here instead,” Shevchuk said in an interview before the meeting.

“To me rock music means freedom. Freedom does not need idols of any kind. I am a free man, and I came to this meeting because the more free people we have out here the better future our country will have.”

Meanwhile, at 5 p.m. on Monday, about 200 pro-Kremlin youth activists gathered on St. Isaac’s Square for an organized post-election celebration in front of a small stage bearing the “Russia, forward!” campaign slogan.

The activists were mostly young men wearing black leather coats and black caps carrying flags representing United Russia and Young Guard.

The crowd watched a rap act, a troupe of marching schoolgirls and listened to state officials reading congratulations to Putin and Medvedev with muted cries of “hurrah.”