In limbo

The mayor's office has not yet given an official response to the notice of the march on February 4, although Deputy Mayor Alexander Gorbenko has already made it clear that the announced route (from Kaluzhskaya Square to Manezhnaya) will not be agreed upon. In anticipation of an official response, a meeting of the Organizing Committee of the action was held on January 24. The meeting was moderated by blogger Alexei Navalny, and the co-applicants were represented by Left Front coordinator Sergei Udaltsov, his wife Anastasia, publisher and journalist Sergei Parkhomenko, lawyer, member of the Public Chamber Elena Lukyanova, writer and publicist Dmitry Bykov. In addition to a number of politicians, public figures, journalists and writers who had already participated in previous meetings, the composition was supplemented by representatives of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (Evgeny Dorovin) and Yabloko (Sergey Mitrokhin), as well as the leader of the Movement for the Defense of the Khimki Forest Evgenia Chirikova. The meeting was also attended by a representative of both “A Just Russia” and the Left Front, Ilya Ponomarev, who quickly left it, since it was still not clear to him whether this formation was legitimate, and the nationalist Vladimir Tor, who, on the contrary, even spoke.
As is known, Gorbenko suggested that the applicants change either the date or the route. The majority of the meeting participants stated that they were ready to think about changing the route, but the date should remain unchanged. As Chirikova stated, the date is sacred because it reminds us of the 1990 march and the fact that exactly a month after the march there will be presidential elections.
The majority agreed that the procession is the main part of the action, so the rally that concludes it should be short, no more than an hour (it should also be taken into account that it will be cold), consisting of short speeches according to strict regulations and several songs. Solidarity co-chairman Boris Nemtsov suggested that those who go to the march march in columns to avoid clashes based on differences in political views. It was decided that a general civil column would lead the way without any political symbols.
Writer Boris Akunin proposed inviting all presidential candidates to the rally and giving the opportunity to speak. As a result of the discussion, as well as voting by the audience (the meeting, held at the Sakharov Center, was broadcast on the Internet using the Echo of Moscow Network viewer), it was decided that those candidates who supported the demands of previous rallies would be given the opportunity to speak. Akunin also made a proposal that all participants in the rally sign an appeal to the candidates, consisting of a minimum list of demands - the “candidate minimum”, and in this case it would be possible to encourage voters to vote for those candidates who include this minimum in their program. The minimum version of Akunin himself includes the release of political prisoners and amnesty for prisoners under “raider” articles, new parliamentary elections within a year from the date of election, new presidential elections within two years.
Since the founder of Yabloko, Grigory Yavlinsky, was actually left out of the election campaign (the Central Electoral Commission announced that it had found too many defects in the signatures collected in support of the candidate, although the official decision had not yet been announced), the text of the resolution of the February 4 action included a requirement for Yavlinsky’s registration. For some reason, the Organizing Committee did not require registration of the governor of the Irkutsk region, Dmitry Mezentsev, who was also removed from the elections. Yavlinsky is being considered by the Organizing Committee among the candidates who will be given the opportunity to speak at the rally.
Olga Romanova proposed to include in the clause concerning political prisoners and unjustly convicted people a requirement to punish those involved in the passing of sentences. Nemtsov said that human rights activists are compiling lists of prisoners who will need to be taken to the presidential administration after the rally, which Olga Romanova and editor-in-chief of the Daily Journal Alexander Ryklin are ready to do. PARNAS co-chairman Vladimir Ryzhkov announced that Gennady Gudkov, a deputy from A Just Russia who was present at the meeting, was ready to join them.
Evgenia Chirikova insisted that the text of the resolution include a requirement to abandon the resource economy, but Navalny suggested that after the meeting, she should send out a draft of the relevant text to everyone, and only then discuss it.
Nemtsov proposed holding the next action on February 26. As for the next meeting of the Organizing Committee, they tentatively decided to schedule it for January 30, but now a lot depends on whether a response is received from the mayor’s office and what it will be.

Later it became known that the mayor’s office, represented by Gorbenko, was inviting the applicants to go along Frunzenskaya Embankment to Luzhniki, which was unacceptable to them. The conversation is not yet finished: the applicants should receive an official response on January 25, and, according to Vladimir Ryzhkov, there will be three more days to think about it. So far, the mayor's office, in turn, does not accept the alternative options proposed by the applicants - neither from Kaluzhskaya Square to the Bolshoy Kamenny Bridge and Bolotnaya Square, nor along Tverskaya Street, nor from Olympic Avenue through the Garden Ring to Academician Sakharov Avenue.