Russia: The "Big White Circle" Protest in Moscow

Global Voices Online
Monday, February 27, 2012

This post is part of our special coverage Russia Elections 2011/12.

On Sunday, Feb. 26, thousands of people gathered in central Moscow for the Big White Circle protest, forming a human chain along most of the length of the Russian capital's 15.6-kilometer/9.7-mile Garden Ring, protesting against corruption and demanding a fair presidential election, which is to take place in one week, on March 4.


The Big White Circle protest for fair election: people stood along the Garden Ring in Moscow, holding hands and waving white ribbons, flowers and balloons. Photo by MARIA PLESHKOVA, copyright © Demotix (26/02/12).

According to the Q&A note [ru] posted on the Facebook page [ru] devoted to the protests in Moscow, the idea of the Big White Circle does not have a specific author:

[...] The idea is on the surface: hundreds of groups of people were doing this in the 20th century when they wanted to show solidarity with each other regarding certain issues. The best-known action of this kind is [the Baltic Way] of 1989, similar actions took place in Moscow in the late 1980s, and this is being done in Europe nowadays. [...]

In the same Q&A note, there is an explanation of why one of the protest's slogans - "Let's encircle the Kremlin" - shouldn't be taken literally:

[...] We can now be sure that if we choose to surround the Kremlin on Feb. 26, we'll definitely have detentions, beatings, arrests and trials. [...] Are you sure that we have 5,000-6,000 people who are prepared to be jailed for participating in this story? We are not sure [...]. [...] Some of us are probably prepared to play the game of "a 70% chance of getting [a 5-year sentence]" - but this, of course, is a game for heroically courageous people. Our courage, just like yours, has its limits. We respect those who are prepared for such a self-sacrifice. And we also respect those who aren't prepared for that. [...]

There's been no lack of international media reports on the Big White Circle protest. One post on the Moscow protests Facebook page reads [ru, en]:

The whole world has learned about the White Circle! Here are some of the headlines from the world's leading news agencies and mass media: Thousands join human chain protest against Putin || Anti-Putin protesters form 'ring around Moscow' || Impressive anti-Putin demonstration in Moscow || Moscow's Big White Circle || Nine mile human chain encircles Moscow in anti Vladimir-Putin protest || Moscow surrounded: Holding hands 'for fair elections' || Muscovites link hands to protest Putin's grip on power || Putin protests cause a 'chain reaction'...

In a comment to this post, Ekaterina Vizgalova wrote [ru]:

The whole world has noticed, while the [state-owned] Channel One hasn't.

RIA Novosti, a state-owned Russian news agency, did notice the Big White Circle protest, however, producing this fast-motion video of a car ride around the Garden Ring at the time of the protest:



A popular Russian blogger Roustem Adagamov (LJ user drugoi) also took a ride around the Garden Ring, pausing to take photos. He wrote this [ru] in the intro to his photo report:

A few tens of thousands of Muscovites have gathered at the Garden Ring today, to take part in the Big White Circle civic action. I rode all around the Garden Ring in an hour and a half, with brief stops - it all looked very cool and fun. The way it always does at genuine gatherings of free citizens who come there of their own free will and not on the orders from their bosses. Cars with white [symbols of the protest] were riding along the [Garden Ring], honking, and people were waving white ribbons, flowers, and balloons. An excellent action, very upbeat and cheerful. [...]

The Big White Circle protest. Photo by MARIA PLESHKOVA, copyright © Demotix (26/02/12).

Another popular blogger, Oleg Kozyrev (LJ user oleg-kozyrev/@oleg_kozyrev), also drove around the Garden Ring, taking photos and shooting a video (which he hasn't posted yet). Following this ride, Kozyrev tweeted [ru] that initially he had doubted that the Big White Circle protest would succeed:

Now I'll confess that I didn't expect success and was feeling pessimistic :)

In the intro to his photo report - a "photo-circle" - Kozyrev wrote [ru]:

[...] A white circle, a live circle. It is becoming more and more obvious that the angry [PM Vladimir Putin] has already lost. He can no longer stop this avalanche of positive resistance.

Will the smile be able to stop the rough force? This is what we'll have to find out in the coming days. [...]

The Big White Circle protest. Photo by MARIA PLESHKOVA, copyright © Demotix (26/02/12).

"Moscow in the circle of friends" is the title of LJ user vova-maltsev's photo report from the Feb. 26 protest. He wrote [ru]:

Some people were saying that we wouldn't be able to close the circle around the Garden Ring. Aha... We have closed it, in two rows. The first one - with the pedestrians, the second - with the drivers.

If you want to see what people who love their country and wish it well look like, here [they are]. [...] I haven't seen so many kind, happy and smiling people in a very long time. At the [regular] rallies, everyone are piled together, while here you are walking down the street and enjoying it. [...]

The Big White Circle protest. Photo by MARIA PLESHKOVA, copyright © Demotix (26/02/12).

More photo reports can be found in the live_report LJ community (by LJ users tushinetc and semasongs), as well as in the namarsh-ru LJ community (by LJ user belial_68).

The next opposition rally is planned for March 5, the day after the election. Moscow city authorities, however, have rejected the opposition's request to hold the rally on Lubyanka Square.

Serguei Parkhomenko, one of the most active participants of the protest movement, wrote this [ru] on Facebook about the significance of the Big White Circle protest - and the wider meaning of March 5 for Russia:

[...] I think we all understand that our today's initiative is not only the last and very powerful event in the history of the past three months [...]. It is also the beginning of a new stage, a new long and difficult conversation that we will all have to be engaged in. Much patience, resilience and strength will be needed. [...]

[...]

We need to avoid making a mistake as we search for the right decision for March 5. [...] History is again offering us a strange and powerful rhyme. It is hinting on something important.

March 5 is the anniversary of the day on which the country got rid of one tyrant [the day on which Joseph Stalin died in 1953]. [...]

March 5 isn't just a random day for all of us.

This post is part of our special coverage Russia Elections 2011/12.

Russia: Riot Police Break Up Opposition Rally

Global Voices Online
Friday, July 31, 2009

Some 100 protesters gathered for an unsanctioned opposition rally in central Moscow on Friday. At 6 PM, hundreds of riot police broke up the rally, detaining 47 people, some of whom were said to be journalists and passerby.

LJ user zyalt posted a quick yet vivid photo report (RUS) from the rally (35 photos). Here is some of what he wrote:

[...] Once again the police have broken up an opposition rally - an unsanctioned one, once again - on Triumfalnaya Square.

[...] At this point, young guys showed up, took out their gas masks with some uncertainty, covered their faces with scarves - they were getting ready, in general. [...] Some of them were quickly detained. [...] Sensing that the show was on, the police, riot police and plainclothes officers started detaining all suspicious-looking young people. [...] They threw everyone on the ground and tried to drag them into the cage. The dissenters resisted desperately.

[...] As usual, though, there were 20 photographers for every dissenter.

[...] At around 6:20 PM they started being rude to photographers. [...]

[...] Via walkie-talkie, they summoned additional help, to push all the reporters inside the metro station. [...] All of us entered the lobby cheerfully. [...] They locked us in. [...] Unfortunately, no one knew what to do with a crowd of journalists inside the metro station, so everyone walked out through the other door.

[...] Then the girls appeared. [...] They were also screaming about freedom of speech and fascists. They were quickly detained.

[...] By the end of this feast, blue [police] shirts significantly outnumbered journalists and the dissenters. [...]

[...] All as usual.

LJ user leosat thinks (RUS) that the Russian opposition is at a dead end:

It's not the first time that the Dissenters' March runs into a solid wall made up of riot police. There is no reason to expect that the regime is going to change its attitude towards the Marches. And why would they, if [their current approach] is efficient? Moreover, the number of protesters is going down and support for them is weakening (it seems to me). [...]

LJ user karimova, who attended the rally, does see certain changes (RUS) - changes for the worse:

I wasn't just chanting today, I was yelling like crazy. When something as wild is taking place right in front of you, it's impossible not to yell. I haven't participated in rallies in a long time, and I didn't expect that this is what it looks like in Russia of 2009. [...] I'm crying as I recall 2005. Most of all, I am shocked by the plainclothes people. [...] Riot police and the cops were chasing people back and forth, like cattle, rude enough. Two young policemen, however, with some special tenderness took me by my arms and pushed aside: "Dear miss, please go away, it's not our fault that you aren't allowed to stand here." In general, I was morally prepared to end up at a police station today. Next time I'll get there, I guess, because I will stand at the square to the end, [damn it], and yell. You're asking what I'm protesting against? Against this unbearable stuffiness, if you know what I mean."

LJ user oleg_kozyrev pinpoints (RUS) what might be considered a change for the better - but ends his post pessimistically, echoing LJ user karimova:

[...] It's good that people in gray [the police] ask photographers to erase their faces more often now - they understand that the internet's memory is long, and who knows, maybe there will be [lustrations] eventually.

The sad news is that 5 people out of the nearly 50 of the detained have been hospitalized [...]. Cruel even for the times of Putin.

Russia: Teen Curfew; Police Officer's Shooting Spree

Global Voices Online
Thursday, April 30, 2009

On April 20, it was announced that President Dmitry Medvedev approved the changes to children's rights law, allowing regional authorities to bar minors under the age of 18, unaccompanied by parents or legal guardians, from public places - "for example, in the street, stadiums, parks, squares, public transport and Internet cafes" - from 10 PM to 6 AM. Below is one of the reactions (RUS) from the Russian blogosphere, by LJ user oleg_kozyrev:

Medvedev and the children

The president sincerely believes that the day after the 18th birthday is the first day when a young person can venture outside after 10 PM.

That is, tomorrow is already time for him to be drafted into the army, to defend the country, to be trusted with tanks and rockets, but a week before that, he was not yet trusted with stepping beyond the threshold of his house after 10 PM. And this concerns all children - those from the villages, and those on vacation, and students, and those who attend music schools and chess classes, and those who are out in the field trip to make a fire and bake potatoes, and those who are into astronomy and are outdoors with a neighbor friend and with a telescope, observing the stars - all of them.

It's actually an incredible joke. IN THE TIME OF PEACE, THEY'VE INTRODUCED CURFEW FOR ALL RUSSIA'S YOUNG PEOPLE.

High crime rates? Fire [minister of the interior Rashid Nurgaliyev]. What do the young people have to do with it?

IF THE PRESIDENT CAN'T SECURE ORDER IN THE STREETS AND INTRODUCES CURFEW AS A SOLUTION - IT'S WORTH FOR SUCH A PRESIDENT TO CONSIDER A DIFFERENT JOB

[...]

Below are some of the comments to this post:

georg_pik:

A person can get access to classified information at the age of 17 (many students need to have such access by the first year of their studies). It means that a first-year student with access to documents that constitute state secret do not have the right to go out into the street after 10 PM.

***

phillennium

And what if it's a first-year student at the evening department, where the last class may end, for example, at 9:50 PM.

***

oleg_kozyrev:

I don't know what world the politicians who adopted this law are living in. Must be some unreal world, in which young people don't work, don't study - don't live.

***

komsomolka_new

Maybe they'd prefer to do without young people at all. Retired people are more active at voting. And they usually ask the election commission at the polling station who to vote for.

***

Anonymous:

There is one thing - the most important one - missing from this law: the way it is in civilized Europe - all food stores (especially including those that sell alcohol) work till 3 PM on Saturdays and are closed on Sundays!!! [This should be introduced] all over Russia!!

***

lev_evgenevi4:

All is okay - this is just another law that is not going to be observed until a cop suddenly wants some money.

At least three of LJ user oleg_kozyrev's readers mention Denis Yevsyukov, a Moscow police officer who shot three people to death and wounded six in a supermarket on April 20, the day he turned 32:

m_holodkowski:

That's right! Who needs to take walks at night when there are Yevsyukovs with bandit guns all around! ;)

***

miecz_kaina:

This is a preventive measure, to keep the police from shooting those who haven't reached the age of 18 after 10 PM.

***

alrihard:

Kids provoke Yevsyukovs. A drunk cop would enter a supermarket in the evening/at night to buy vodka, his wife [...] hasn't given it to him yet, and here are all those happy young boys and girls...

Following Major Yevsyukov's shooting spree, president Medvedev sacked Colonel-General Vladimir Pronin, Moscow’s police chief since 2001.

Russia, U.S.: Obama Wins, Medvedev Speaks

Global Voices Online
Saturday, November 8, 2008

Just hours after Barack Obama won the U.S. presidential election, Russian president Dmitry Medvedev delivered his first address to the Federal Assembly, making statements that grabbed attention both at home and in the West.

To Medvedev's proposal to lengthen the presidential term in Russia from four to six years, LJ user oleg-kozyrev responded (RUS):

I've found a way out. I support Medvedev's proposal to rule for six years. Only along with that, they should also change the legislation regarding the duration of the year. One year has to be 243 days long.

Although in his address Medvedev did not congratulate Obama on his victory, nor did he mention the U.S. president-elect by name, he nevertheless sent a harsh message by way of a greeting, promising, among other things, to deploy short-range Iskander missile system in Kaliningrad region, on Russia's western border, in order "to effectively counter the persistent and consistent attempts of the current American administration to install new elements of a global missile defence system in Europe."

Below is what some Russian bloggers wrote in response to the part of Medvedev's address that was meant as much for the international audiences as for the domestic ones.

LJ user viking-nord (RUS):

Now, tell me why did Medvedev have to wait for the outcome of the U.S. election to deliver his address to the Federal Assembly??? No steps whatsoever have been taken towards improvement of the relations with the United States.

I wanted to hear him say that he was starting a new page in the relationship with the new U.S. administration. Like, for example, we'll begin negotiations on the missile defense system in Eastern Europe. But nothing of this kind has been said. Quite the opposite, this is how it sounded - you deploy, we don't care, and as a response, we'll place Iskanders in Kaliningrad and leave a missile division deployed in Kozelsk. That is, we are launching an arms race at the time of an economic crisis!!! Not bad, right???

In general, I think even Obama could not expect anything like this... And he could have retreated with the missile defense system, as this is an expensive delight, and the Democrats, as a rule, are very practical.

A few comments to this post:

disaster_cake:

Don't be naive, nothing will change in the relationship between Russia and America in the nearest future. A change of regime on one side doesn't mean anything. Besides, the attitude towards Russia is perhaps the only point on which Obama agreed with McCain during the debates.

***

prikolruss:

They need an enemy. Hence the provocation and ruthlessness. They can't do without an enemy, can they??? :(((

***

viking_nord:

An image of an external enemy is needed to suppress domestic freedoms.

LJ user telemont (RUS):

[...] If there'd been no [address by Medvedev on Nov. 5], all the commentators would've been discussing the U.S. election, and domestic realities would have inevitably been compared to the American ones. By stepping out onto the podium and dropping a set of pre-made chips, Medvedev has shifted the focus of public attention from the issues that are dangerous to the regime.

Exactly the same approach was used at the time of the [Beslan tragedy]: when the public turned out to have many questions that were harsh and very unpleasant for the regime, Putin all of a sudden proposed to eliminate regional governor's elections. Honestly, [an irrelevant] initiative, but it worked great: everyone rushed off to argue, select and appoint right away, forgetting about the children who had died.

In another post, LJ user telemont noted (RUS) that trying to figure out the subtext of Medvedev's message is nothing but an exercise in futility:

[...] What's the point of looking for meaning in the addresses of people who don't assume responsibility even for their actions, let alone their words.

(A selection of links to English-language bloggers' reactions to Medvedev's address is here.)

Russia, Belarus: "Gazilla"

Global Voices Online
Saturday, December 30, 2006

There's a distinct sense of deja vu this New Year's Eve: Gazprom, Russia's largest (and state-controlled) company and the world's biggest extractor of natural gas, is in the spotlight again, both locally (due to an ambitious and controversial construction project in St. Petersburg) and internationally (due to a dispute over prices and control of a pipeline in Belarus, very similar to the Russia-Ukraine gas dispute exactly a year ago).

Quite a few Russian bloggers have posted this banner on their blogs, linking to a flash game that was created by St. Petersburg branch of the Yabloko Party:



The monster hulking over St. Petersburg's Smolny Cathedral isn't Godzilla. It is Gazilla, and it represents Gazprom, and its name, allegedly, was coined by LJ user alexvert a year ago (according to LJ user aneta_spb (RUS)).

Gazilla/Gazprom is planning to build a 300-meter-tall glass tower (dubbed “the corn on the cob”), which would change its color up to 10 times per day, depending on the position of the sun, and soar a few times higher than any of St. Petersburg's famous landmarks (including the Smolny Cathedral, located right across the Neva River from the proposed construction site). Gazprom City is the skyscraper project's official name (gazoskryob - "gas-scraper" - instead of neboskryob, as one Russian newspaper jokingly misnamed it (RUS)). It is expected to be finished by 2016.



Obviously, many consider the project a threat to the historic landscape. The latest protest rally took place Dec. 28 at Malaya Sadovaya St. in St. Petersburg: the protesters brought canned corn with them and constructed a mock tower; LJ user consultantphoto has a few photos from the rally.

As for the Gazilla flash game, one is supposed to throw apples at the creature, and this isn't a surprising choice of the weapon, since Yabloko, the name of the party that has made the game, translates as "apple." Here's one blogger's comment on it (LJ user oleg-kozyrev, RUS):

I can't help but support this

St. Pete's Yabloko folks have created a fun thing. I like it when people choose a creative approach. Everyone must've heard by now about the Gazprom-monster that they want to erect [in St. Petersburg] and thus turn the culture capital into the capital of culturelessness. So I'm making my micro-contribution into the noble cause of preserving St. Pete [by promoting the Gazilla game]. Moscow that's been killed is more than enough for us. Hopefully, they'll leave St. Pete alone.

[...]

***

Just like Ukraine a year ago, Belarus is preparing for a New Year's Day gas supply cutoff: so far, there seems to be no sign of resolution in the dispute that, among other things, threatens the delivery of gas to Europe.

Up until now, Belarus paid $47 per 1,000 cubic meters; if this close ally of Russia gives in to the price hike demanded by Gazprom, it will be paying $105 per 1,000 cubic meters.

Aleksandr Lukashenko, considered by many "Europe's last dictator," is reported to have accused Gazprom of blackmail.

Opposition leader and former presidential candidate Aleksandr Milinkevich, on the other hand, said in an interview with the Gazprom-owned Radio Echo of Moscow that he "understood [Gazprom's] position and considered it normal" (RUS).

LJ user sadovnikov has called Milinkevich "a traitor" (RUS).

LJ user aneta_spb - a Belarus native living in St. Petersburg - weighs in (RUS) on what appear to be rather desperate political somersaults performed by Belarusian politicians as they find themselves face to face with Gazilla:

I hope my fellow-countrymen Belarusians would forgive me, but I don't like how many oppositioners are close to depicting Gazilla white and fluffy, as they are accusing [Aleksandr Lukashenko] of having failed to negotiate with Gazprom.

For the first time in my life, I almost agree with [Lukashenko].

He's a jerk, of course. But this inflated monster Gazprom is now just trying to grab as much as it can while it is still able to. Gas supplies are coming to an end. New fields haven't been explored. Equipment is worn down. Soon, they'll be transporting abroad all that remains of the gas, and there'll be a little bit for [Moscow] and whatever remains from that - for St. Petersburg.

They are already "investing in real estate" - and want to build their phallos [Gazprom City] using St. Pete money (my money, too, that is).

What would the Russian countryside do? Nothing. They'll have to live without gas. Well, as most of them live already.

[...]