Translated material
The struggle against the autocracy
The main slogan of Russian civil society is “Russia without Putin”
Immediately behind the chain of police officers near Kaluga Square there is a bearded man with an unusual poster. Many have in their hands - mocking cartoons in Putin, in extreme cases - on Churov with Medvedev. And here in the hands of a person the image of Jesus Christ. And not a poster, but a picture nailed to the handle.
"Why did you come with such an image?" I ask. “Art should be where life is,” answers the man who turns out to be artist Mikhail Smorchevsky . - You didn't recognize me? He asks almost without chagrin. - Once I was known. - And the artist begins to recall: - In Soviet times, I was thrown out of the country. I lived in America. " - "And when did you return?" - “In 1994. Then, when Solzhenitsyn . "
Is there life on Yakimanka?
Mikhail Smorchevsky is right, at least in one - life on Bolshaya Yakimanka is definitely. This was especially noticeable at noon on February 4, 2012. Life boils, despite the frost. A huge number of people gather faster than on Sakharov Avenue on December 24, 2011.
Artist Mikhail Smorchevsky on Bolshaya Yakimanka. Photo: Alexey Semenov
How many people have gathered here - it is difficult to determine by eye. Later, Vladimir Ryzhkov from the stage on Bolotnaya Square will say: “Instead of a joke: television reported that 56 thousand gathered on Putin’s worship for a rally in defense of Putin , and here - 14 thousand.”
In response, universal laughter will sound. There are so many protesters around that from a single point of the end of the column is not visible. According to various estimates, in the twenty -degree frost to the procession for honest elections in Moscow voluntarily gathered from 100 to 120 thousand people. This is more than it came to Bolotnaya Square on December 10, 2011.
However, Vladimir Putin, commenting on the results of the alternative rally, which consisted of his support on Poklonnaya Hill, will say about 135 to 190 thousand. He would have mentioned another 99% in the elections in Chechnya.
... But before being in Bolotnaya Square, it was necessary to go through the whole large Yakimanka, where white and green balls filled with helium were actively distributed near Kaluga Square.
On the white balls granted by the voters newly created by the League, the inscription: "Once again they puff me - I will burst." There is a more optimistic option: "I do not die."
Behind the balls is a line. People stretch up and tear off balls, like petals in a giant flower. Fortunately?
Later, when Yuri Shevchuk will sing a song about his homeland from the stage, all the balls will simultaneously release into the sky. In the meantime, they are given to people of completely different beliefs and status. To everyone who believes that Russia has grown to honest elections.
The view of the clown with a bell in the nose, with a business appearance of the tied multi-colored balls to its yellow backpack, leads me to the idea that the Russian carnival will begin: Russian winter, minus twenty, mitte-valenks-trees ... But if an ordinary carnival is accompanied by a masquerade, then everything is different here. People gathered to disrupt the masks from the power that, in their opinion, hiding behind the people, robs the country. But what is happening does not cease to be a holiday.
The clown on Bolshaya Yakimanka is a clear reaction to the insults of Putin's supporters who called the protesting clowns. “Do you call us clowns? Fine".
Amphoras without Putin
There are more and more people on Bolshaya Yakimanka. Pensioners, students, teachers, workers, artists, writers, businessmen ... Every tenth has some kind of home-made poster in their hands. Something like “Elections without falsifications, amphoras without Putin”, “Put in Trash” (“Throw into the garbage bucket”) or “Why did Volodka shave out his outlets?” (with portraits of Stalin , Lukashenko , Gaddafi and Putin).
Anyone who sees at least one mink coat will receive a prize. Photo: Alexey Semenov
Folk art is preferable to what individual organizers of the procession offer.
In any case, chants and counters “about Vova” coming from the speakers are too primitive. The slogan “Putin - thief” sounds most loudly and sharply over Moscow! Briefly and clear. Although not funny. But not far from the truth.
Columns are gradually formed. Left, nationalists, right ... However, most of the audience is not a party, but by themselves. By and large, this is a procession of non -partisans. The rest are only joined. Parties are usually collected one hundredth of the number of people who came to a large Yakimanka.
A group of journalists concentrates near the leader of the common column - Vladimir Ryzhkov. He - in a blue jacket with a white ribbon on his chest - is constantly talking on a mobile phone and gives an interview. In the interval, he reports to others:
"Yesterday he talked with Mikhail Prokhorov -he leads a column of two or three thousand."
So I want to clarify: “Two or three thousand what? Billions of dollars? "
“There is not enough music,” Ryzhkov says with regret. “They must turn on the music.”
Music is included only in about twenty minutes. This is Vladimir Vysotsky . Vysotsky is replaced by the group “The Clash” - the song “London Calling”.
"Do not be afraid that today will be less than on Sakharov Avenue?" -someone asks Ryzhkov. - "No. We conducted a survey on Sakharov Avenue: “Will you come next time?” 97 % of respondents said that they would come in any weather. I am sure that it will be so. ”
Self -government
The main motto of the procession is “Russia without Putin”. This banner is stretched over almost the entire width of the Big Yakimanka.
Vladimir Ryzhkov commands a parade. Photo: Alexey Semenov
Yakimanka, of course, is large, but there is not enough its width for everyone. People are all suitable and suitable, ahead of those who stood in front of the roadway along the sidewalk.
The column is trying to hit the road several times without waiting for the team. But behind the people joyfully begins to chant together: “Stand! Stand!" Self -government in action.
Half-first, after several falsestarts, the column is finally really touching the place. Ahead, along with posters and a tricolor flag with the name “Yavlinsky”, the flags of “solidarity”, the flag of the “cheerful Roger” swaying landing flags. Among them, a lone Andreevsky flag flutters.
On the truck that goes to the right, they include the song "Anarchy" of the group "Kino". However, there is no anarchy in the columns. But communication is constantly going on. Strangers tell each other about what forces them for the third time to protest on the streets of Moscow. A general sensation - forces chaos. That is, what Putin's supporters are scared by, claiming that if Putin is not elected, then chaos will come in Russia.
According to the audience, the chaos has already come. Under Putin and because of Putin. In any case, the stories about what is happening today in factories, in the markets, in universities, in hospitals, in the army - they lead to this simple thought.
The corruption economy cannot cope. And the corruption policy does not cope. The Russian government has unlimited possibilities and limited conscience.
Ahead - the Kremlin
The column moves without stopping. The poster parade continues. Ahead above the heads swaying: “Smart friends and enemy enemies. What a blessing! Boris Akunin ”and“ Putin - I threw, we do not believe him. ” Portraits of Khodorkovsky flash.
There was a whole gallery from galleys on the procession. Photo: Alexey Semenov
People look out of the surrounding houses. Many take pictures. White ribbons hang from some balconies.
In an open window, a man with a camera suddenly arises waist -up. Apparently, he woke up, looked out the window and stunned. "Get down!" - shout to a man from the crowd.
“The Kremlin is already visible!”, - a peppy voice is heard. It is said meaningfully. Indeed, the Kremlin’s towers appeared ahead.
The man who goes ahead of me has a headdress “a la North Korea” on the head with the inscription: “We are not Koreans - we will not cry.” The neighboring poster says: "We are cold, but we came."
However, the frost does not interfere too much. If you get dressed in season, it’s not cold at all. 20 degrees below zero with a light breeze. I didn’t even have to raise the hood of the jacket. Words on the fly do not freeze. You can live.
Not far from the Crimean bridge from the Irish pub, the company comes out with the poster “Thank you for living” and a portrait of Putin. Even against the background of other satirical posters, their presidential candidate looks defiantly funny. Photographers and those who want to take a picture against a historical background are rushing to the company.
Near the Small Stone Bridge, just under the appropriate pointer of the Lumier Brothers Studios, many television operators and photorepectors are gathering. Here is a profitable point to capture almost all participants in the procession.
We cross the bridge and turn right, to the kiss of the bridge, moving past the alley of trees, entirely consisting of hinged castles - symbols of strong love. There are thousands of hinged castles. Probably, today in Russia it is easier to open all these castles with a fingernail, one after another than to honestly win the elections. But this is today. Tomorrow and the day after all, everything can change.
Near the scene, over which the slogan “Russia will be free” hangs, the recordings of Vysotsky, Tsoi show on large screens. Then they include the clip “Train in the fire” of Aquarium.
Republican party
The start of the rally is slightly lubricated. Evgenia Chirikova and Vladimir Ryzhkov give a word to musical critic Artemia Troitsky . He begins to sing a song of his own composition, urging not so much to sing along as to dance under the chorus: “Putin’s gang on the bunk! Sha Pu on! "
There were no indifferent in Bolotnaya Square. Photo: Alexey Semenov
On Moscow performed by Troitsky, it sounds:
Little Vova won the lotto -
Nobody needs Russia again.
Citizens in a coma, urki rule -
The law enforcement officers are standing on the shooting.
This obvious anti -artistic amateur activity is replaced by the performance of the “Free Troops” group with the same song about Putin ( “We demand peacefully - tyrant, leave!” ).
The people, of course, have nothing to do from, it welcomes, but there is no particular enthusiasm. A primitive banter and gloomy protest do not quite correspond to the mood of those who came to Bolotnaya Square in a general citizen column.
Given the frost, the number of protruding is limited. Just like the time for performances. However, the writer Lyudmila Ulitskaya speaks very briefly. Yes, besides, also quietly. She says: "There are several future presidents in the crowd."
The crowd in response begins to chant: “Louder, not heard!”, Thus drowning already quiet speech.
The journalist Irina Yasina is just as quiet, past the microphone. It is taken out in a wheelchair. “Someone has no legs,” she says, “someone has no hands, someone has no conscience, someone has no honor. If you cannot grow your legs and hands yourself again, then you can educate conscience and honor in yourself. And we must work with you to lead us with honor. It depends on us, it depends on the fact that we are going here. It depends on the fact that there are so many of us. ”
The main idea of almost all speakers: the changes are just beginning.
Suddenly, an American trace is manifested in Bolotnaya. But this is not a trace of the US State Department at all. People with the poster “We must hold together so that we are not hanged by separately” are moving through the crowd. " And the signature: " Benjamen Franklin , 1776."
The most intelligibly from the stage is said by Ilya Yashin (the Movement "Solidarity") and Sergey Udaltsov , who have plenty of experience at protest rallies (as well as the experience of imprisonment after these rallies).
Yashin chants: “Down with the autocracy! Long live the republic! "
The leader of the “Left Front” Sergei Udaltsov meets all those who claim that people come to rallies in the interests of the United States. “This is a lie and provocation! He screams. - In 1999, when they bombed Serbia, I was at the American embassy. There they threw the American embassy to all shit to the fifth and sixth floor. Here, I personally threw it to the fifth floor! Where was Putin? Where was Medvedev ? Where was Kurginyan ? Where was this all this gang? I have not seen them there ... They say that this is a revolution of mink coats. What are you lying, bastards?! I’ve been walking in this jacket for the third year! Where is the mink fur coats? And fur coats, and billions, and villas abroad! Therefore, we are in the interests of the majority, which is humiliated today. ”
Insomnia
Dmitry Bykov , Harry Kasparov , Sergey Mitrokhin , Boris Nemtsov stand on the stage ... But they do not approach the microphone. Limit.
Protesters believe that it is impossible to take someone else's. Photo: Alexey Semenov
Grigory Yavlinsky (Party "Yabloko"), Gennady Gudkov ("Fair Russia"), Alexander Belov (DPNI) are performed.
The television journalist Leonid Parfyonov makes a short speech “About the degree of mood”. “It all depends on the measure of our, your feeling that this arrogant power caste closes our life horizons,” says Parfyonov. - The society was dozing all zero years. During this time, his rights were stolen from him. But it’s already enough, you have to wake up, you have to do something. After all, for this time we will not forget, we will not sleep. ”
Seeing the liberals (Yavlinsky) and nationalists (Belova) together is strange and unpleasant. But seeing Putin and his environment at the head of Russia is even more strange and unpleasant. How many years are they in power, and the habit of them has not yet developed. Putin in power is unnatural. This is a perversion.
It is not that Russian nationalists again took part in the Antiputin procession. They did not determine the mood. Most of them were far from the stage. In addition, a person four hundred per hundred thousand people are negligible.
Another is puzzling: the organizers of the rally and procession from the newly created voter league from the very beginning are inconsistent. They, it seems, do not recognize the upcoming elections honest. And at the same time they call on to participate in them. They persistently agitate everyone to come to the presidential elections as observers and voters. Send the corresponding resolutions to the Kremlin. They offer to restore Yavlinsky’s registration. Suppose they will be heard, and Yavlinsky will be registered. Will the presidential election become more honest?
Evgenia Chirikova, when voting the points of the final resolution, constantly repeats: "Unanimously, unanimously." Of course, there is no unanimity at the rally. Except for one question: "Putin must leave." But it is not proposed to vote on this subject. They vote just because "Churov must leave."
Thus, while the power of Putin’s power in the weakness of opposition leaders. It seems that some of those who climb the stage during anti-Putin rallies do not interfere with Putin too much. Moreover, they need him - as a scarecrow. And as a guarantor of their stable opposition. Hence such maximum and meaningless resolutions.
But the rallies and processions themselves cannot be called meaningless. They change the atmosphere. They force those who have brains to move these brains. They are able to arouse conscience.
Finally, Yuri Shevchuk with a guitar approaches the microphone. “I don’t even know what to sing to you,” he says and begins: “Oh, frost, frost, ..”. Gradually, “Oh Frost ...” goes into “I'm going to my homeland”. The song is old, but the words are relevant:
God,
How much truth is in the eyes of state whores!
God,
How many faith in the hands of retired executioners!
You don't let them roll their sleeves again ...
Over the years that have passed since the day of writing the song, the truth in the eyes of old and new statesmen has become even more. They are ready to swear on anything, just to remain in power.
The path to freedom passes through the framework of metal detectors. Photo: Alexey Semenov
While Shevchuk sings, standing behind him, Dmitry Bykov sways with the poster: "Do not swing the boat - our rat is sick." The rat on the poster suspiciously reminds Putin.
After Shevchuk’s song and announcements of an evening concert in support of political prisoners, people begin to disperse slowly. But it is not so simple to do this, despite the fact that all the ways from Bolotnaya Square seem to be open.
Those who stood the closest to the scene, there is no way to leave the same road that they came. The crowd presses in the back. We have to move through a gap formed in a metal grid. From a distance it seems that this is a regular way out. In fact, you need to jump over a low barrier, and then jump down.
Under the song of the Alice group “Time to change the names” I, following hundreds of other people, jump into the crowd, which in a meter under me moves along the channel. Otherwise, do not get out of here. Everyone helps each other. There is no crush.
Finally, under the song “Freedom” of the DDT group, which is distributed in the district, I climb the roadway and face Yuri Shevchuk, who at that time approaches the car. He is immediately surrounded by fans.
One of them pronounces with admiration and irony: "Shevchuk is almost Lenin ."
Yuri Shevchuk, meanwhile, gives out autographs, after which he hastily gets into the car, which delays to the left and goes towards the Kremlin, to which the hand is at hand. I'm going in that direction and I am.
In Bolotnaya Square with Vladimir Putin, they spoke in a good way. Photo: Alexey Semenov
A long row of policemen lined up to the very temple of Vasily Blessed. I also need to go to the Bibli -Globus store - buy a biography of Frank Popa "Electric Don Quixote". In the end, the light of a wedge in Putin did not agree. Life continues.
The police are interested in the lands of the sidewalk among those who return from the rally: “How did everything go? Has the landing? And Shevchuk? " - "They sang, everyone sang." The policeman in response says something illegible, but the meaning is clear: "Sorry, I was not there."
Meanwhile, a spontaneous rally of four people is organized on the bridge across the Moscow River. They, standing with the poster, “Power close their eyes to the lawlessness of officials,” posing against the backdrop of the Kremlin towers, campaigning for Putin and shouting: “We conduct an alternative rally against orange infection!”
They would go to the worship of the mountain, bow to Putin's shadows. But they came closer to Bolotnaya. For such people, Putin is not an official, but God, so there is no contradiction in their slogan. They fight against the bad boyars for the good Putin. There are hardly more than a third of such people in Russia today. Следовательно, остальные думают иначе. Их мнение как раз и выражают те десятки тысяч людей, что последние два месяца выходят на митинги протеста. Пока власть делает вид, что они мало что значат. Но делает вид очень неумело.
Спасительный смех
В феврале 2012 года очень уместно перечитать текст, написанный в 1936 году Владимиром Набоковым . Хрестоматийный рассказ называется «Истребление тиранов». Государственный вождь в рассказе становился все крупнее и крупнее, «все кругом принимало его облик, закон до смешного начинал смахивать на его походку и жесты», в школах ввели преподавание борьбы, которой он увлекался, в газетах то и дело мелькали статьи, до верху набитые банальностями… В итоге, «закон, им поставленный, - неумолимая власть большинства, ежесекундные жертвы идолу большинства, - утратил всякий социологический смысл, ибо большинство это он».
Лозунг «Долой самодержавие!» особенно актуален в феврале. Photo: Alexey Semenov
Все происходящее вызывало у рассказчика – противника тирана – ненависть, которая разъедала его изнутри. И так продолжалось до тех пор, пока он не разглядел, насколько этот тиран был смешон.
Смех оказался спасительным. Что-то похожее происходит сейчас на митингах и шествиях протеста. То самодержавие, которое навязывают сегодня России, беспомощно, а потому и смешно. Судя по настроению, большинство участников шествия на Большой Якиманке именно так и считают. И этот живой смех не делает положение дел безнадежным.
Alexey Semenov. Москва – Псков