St. Petersburg - 1:1

One of the rallies in the northern capital escaped police boots

Local authorities banned any actions in the city center on the last day of spring under the pretext of preparing for Children's Day. One of the rallies was without excesses, which cannot be said about the other. At about 18:00 to the metro station "Gostiny...

Local authorities banned any actions in the city center on the last day of spring under the pretext of preparing for Children's Day. One of the rallies was without excesses, which cannot be said about the other.

At about 6 pm, the National Bolsheviks, representatives of the TIGR movement, the RNDS came out to the Gostiny Dvor metro station on Nevsky Prospekt - about 300 people in total. Participants of the action "Strategy-31" appeared in black T-shirts with the number "31" on the back and on the chest, with buckets on their heads with the same number, many were waving volumes of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, as well as books with the number "31" on the cover. Shouts were heard over the crowd: “Freedom for Russia!”, “Freedom for political prisoners!”, “Freedom for speech!”

But since Smolny initially did not allow members of the banned NBP to hold a rally, conflicts with the police could not be avoided. As soon as the protesters who had gathered on Nevsky Prospekt began to chant slogans, the police officers, having warned them about the inadmissibility of an uncoordinated event, began arrests. Literally in half an hour, the police “stuffed” four buses with National Bolsheviks: riot police detained about 90 people (according to the Central Internal Affairs Directorate - 60), including the leader of the RNDS in St. Petersburg Andrei Pivovarov and the leader of the St. Petersburg National Bolsheviks Andrei Dmitriev.

Around the same time, representatives of the democratic opposition met on Palace Square, including: Boris Nemtsov, one of the leaders of the Solidarity movement, politician Vladimir Milov, head of the St. , lawyer Yuri Schmidt and many others.

DDT leader Yuri Shevchuk could not attend the opposition rally:

“I warned everyone in advance that I would not be,” Shevchuk said in an interview with Novaya Gazeta. - I have a serious job. First of all, I am a musician, and only then a citizen. Everything I wanted to say, I already said last week ( in a conversation with Vladimir Putin. - N.P. ).

The musician is now in Moscow on the set, which, according to him, was planned for a long time.

The Democrats who broke away from the "Limonovites" were more fortunate - their rally was held calmly. In total, there were about 500 people on Palace Square. They stood without flags, posters, loudspeakers. The police, which, by the way, was less than usual in such cases, did not touch anyone. Only one man was detained for unfurling a placard: "It is forbidden to prohibit." Twisted by riot police, the activist managed to declare to the TV cameras: “We have nothing to be afraid of. If we continue to remain silent, we will be finished.”

Then the column headed by Boris Nemtsov, Maxim Reznik and Olga Kurnosova moved from Palace Square to Senate Square. The law enforcement officers tried to stop the marchers by forming a dense cordon ring, but after short negotiations between the riot police and Boris Nemtsov, they let people through and no longer impeded the movement. Oppositionists staged an impromptu concert on Senate Square with the participation of Mikhail Borzykin, Mikhail Novitsky and the SP-Babai group. And the young "Yabloko" painted everyone's faces with paint, depicting the number "31". The policemen were smoking on the sidelines.