February

February 26. Participants in the Flashmob "White Circle" managed to close the live chain around the garden ring

February 1, Wednesday

Vice-mayor of Moscow Alexander Gorbenko said that in the coming weeks the repair should be completed on the triumphal square , so it should again become available for rallies. The Triumphal Square was closed in August 2010, when the participants in the Strategy 31 began to hold rallies in defense of the 31st article of the Constitution on the 31st of the month. Each time, the shares were harshly accelerated by the police, their organizers were delayed. Despite the promises of Alexander Gorbenko, the Triumphal Square is still not open.

February 4, Saturday

In the 20-degree frost in Moscow, several rallies took place at once, the most crowded-in Bolotnaya Square and Poklonnaya Gora. The promotion “For honest elections”, which began by a procession along Bolshaya Yakimanka Street, ended in a rally in Bolotnaya Square and, according to various estimates, collected from 36 thousand to 120 thousand participants. The rally was performed by Evgenia Chirikova, Lyudmila Ulitskaya, Sergey Udaltsov, Olga Romanova, Irina Yasina, Leonid Parfyenov and Grigory Yavlinsky. The rally ended with the song "Homeland" performed by Yuri Shevchuk. At the same time, from 50 thousand to 140 thousand people under the slogan "we have something to lose." The writer Nikolai Starikov voiced the main call of the organizers of the action: "To vote for the only candidate who does not go to the US Embassy." According to the protesters themselves, people were brought by buses, often from the regions, threatening administrative penalties or, on the contrary, offering premium.

February 6, Monday

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said that there are no political prisoners in Russia , thus reacting to the rally resolution on Bolotnaya Square of February 4. “All the time they talk about this, not naming the names. At least they showed at least one person who sits for political reasons, ”said Putin. “If a person was borrowed to prison for 10–20 years, as Nelson Mandela was sitting, who fought for the freedom of the black population, we don’t have such.”

February 10, Friday

President Dmitry Medvedev removed from the post of chief of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region Mikhail Sukhodolsky, appointing the deputy head of the headquarters-chief of police, Sergei Umnov. The resignation turned into a special operation when Sukhodolsky refused to leave his office on Suvorovsky Prospekt. The armed fighters of riot police blocked the reception of Colonel General, as well as the very building of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region. After long negotiations, Sukhodolsky, who met, according to experts, to the post of Minister of the Interior, agreed to leave his office.

February 13, Monday

Actress Chulpan Khamatova became the hero of the scandal, speaking in support of presidential candidate Vladimir Putin. Following Oleg Tabakov, Alisa Freindlich, Yuri Bashmet and Evgeny Mironov Khamatova, she starred in a pre -election video with a story why he campaigned for Putin: “Vladimir Putin never remained indifferent to all the requests of the Life Foundation and the doctors whom the Fund supports. All the promises given to Vladimir Putin “Give Life” have always been fulfilled. ”

February 17, Friday

One of the persons in the list of political prisoners Sergey Mokhnatkin, arrested on the triumphal square on December 31, 2009 and sentenced to 2.5 years in the colony, was beaten by employees of the colony No. 4 of the city of Torzhok, Torzhok region. Mokhnatkin complained about the loss of things from the pantry of the colony school. An appeal addressed to the Torzhkin prosecutor, written by Mokhnatkin in the fact of beating, was not sent by the head of the colony, and the medical unit did not record the injuries.

In the Altai Territory, a criminal case has been instituted against the overseers of the correctional colony No. 3 of the city of Barnaul, suspected of killing the convicted person in December 2011. The victim tried to commit suicide, and, “to save him from depressive thoughts,” the jailers brutally beat the prisoner with a club. A few days later the victim died in intensive care.

In the central office of the National Reserve Bank (NRB), owned by the entrepreneur Alexander Lebedev, a search was held , at the same time the Central Bank of the Russian Federation conducted inspections in 19 regional branches of the bank. According to Novaya Gazeta, one of the co -owners of which is Lebedev, searches were not related to commercial activities. They were carried out by employees of the Department of Economic Security (Deb) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the FSB, who were interested in financing the humanitarian and media projects of Alexander Lebedev.

February 19, Sunday

In 30 Russian cities, automotive races were held in support of the protest campaign “For honest elections” . Participants in the Moscow campaign, in which from 150 (according to the State Department of Internal Affairs) to 2 thousand (according to the organizers) of cars took part, tried to close the ring around the Kremlin, but the rally collided with serious opposition to the authorities: the traffic police covered the entrances to the city center from the garden ring and the embankments around the Kremlin.

February 20, Monday

The outgoing President Dmitry Medvedev met with the leaders of the opposition - Boris Nemtsov, Vladimir Ryzhkov and Sergey Udaltsov . Oppositionists voiced rallies in Bolotnaya Square and Sakharov Avenue, and also handed the president a list of 37 political prisoners with a request to have mercy on them. The president again promised to carry out political reform, including returning direct elections of governors, simplifying the registration of political parties and even limiting the possibility of holding the president’s post in a total of three terms. If since then the parties actually became easier to register, there was no restriction on the presidential terms, neither Medvedev, nor Putin have pardoned anyone from the opposition list, and in December 2012 Vladimir Putin said that, given the specifics of some regions, it would be advisable to cancel the election of the governor’s elections.

February 21, Tuesday

Five members of the Pussy Riot group held a punk-ground in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior . Wearing bright balaclavs on their heads, they tried to perform the song “The Virgin, Putin of the run” on the settings, but after a few minutes they were forced to hide. The Chairman of the Synodal Department for the Interaction of the Church and the Society of the Moscow Patriarchate Vsevolod Chaplin called on the same day to translate an article on insulting religious feelings from the Administrative Code of the Russian Federation to criminal.

A criminal case was opened on the fact of a punk-grain and a video with a song on Article 213 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“hooliganism”).

February 23, Thursday

In Moscow, a large -scale action was held in support of presidential candidate Vladimir Putin , in which, according to the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, 130 thousand people took part. The column of Putin’s supporters was march along the Frunze embankment to the Luzhniki stadium, where a rally called “Protect the Country” took place. The Prime Minister himself, who called for a look behind the hill, not run left, to the side, and not change his homeland, but to be with us, work for her and her people and love her like us with all our hearts. ”

February 26, Sunday

In Moscow, the flash mob “for honest elections” under the name “Big White Circle” was held . Handing hands, the participants in the action closed a living chain on the inside of the garden ring. The flash mob took part from 11 thousand (data from the State Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs) to 34 thousand (data of the organizers) person.

February 29, Wednesday

Deputies of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg adopted in the third reading the Law on the prohibition of propaganda of homosexuality among minors . The new article introduced fines for "public actions aimed at promoting sodigy, lesbianism, bisexualism, transgenderness." Private persons will have to pay up to 5 thousand rubles, officials - up to 50 thousand rubles, and legal entities - up to half a million.

Photo: Alexander Miridonov/Kommersant