A rally against the Yarovaya package was held in Sokolniki Park

The rally was held on the third attempt - before that, the Moscow authorities twice banned it. A correspondent from Novaya Gazeta visited the protests to see what composition the opposition is going to fight against the draconian laws adopted by the outgoing parliament, and who, exactly, about a month ago, the mayor's office was afraid to let under the windows of the presidential administration.

Somewhere at the central gate of the park, a dense column of citizens is divided into two almost equal streams: those who go to the rally turn left, those who go to the park go straight. A little further away - trays with teddy bears and a "horizontal bar" sports and entertainment attraction. The one who hangs for 120 seconds on bent arms gets a prize. Two thousand rubles. Each attempt costs two hundred, the first five seconds are free. But no one seems to be interested.

So that the oppositionists do not get lost, from the main entrance, all the way along the fence and gray high-rise buildings, the volunteers of the campaign headquarters of Nikolai Lyaskin, the head of the Moscow branch of the Progress Party and a candidate for the State Duma, hold posters with a portrait of Yarovaya and point the right direction.

Immediately after the sports center - to the right. Here the paved path winds into the park. An elderly woman with another portrait, also a volunteer, is surprised: “We expected that no one would come, after all, it’s summer, and there are so many people here!” The sidewalk is really packed with people. Ten minutes of walking along the shady alleys, and we are there.

The police frames are lost in the greenery. “The place doesn’t matter, what matters is the reason why we all gathered here,” Konstantin Yankauskas, a deputy of the municipal assembly of the Zyuzino district, a city activist and a candidate for the State Duma in the Cheryomushkinsky district, convinces us looking back at the stage where the leaders’ speeches have already begun.

“I have been going to unauthorized rallies since 2007 and have seen a lot. We were attacked with bats, I’m not afraid of anything, but if we call someone to go out, we must ensure their safety or at least find money for lawyers, ”the candidate comments on the skeptical remarks that the Network responded to the announcement posted on Facebook rally in the park. “Couch analysts don’t even do that,” laments the politician.

“Well, what’s the point of gathering for a rally here in the forest?” “To see each other. This is a good way to meet friends and find volunteers,” Yulia Galyamina, another activist and candidate for the State Duma, joins the conversation. Unlike Jankauskas, who is running for PARNAS, the activist is running for parliament from Yabloko, so formally they are competitors.

A matter of place

A little further away are the rest of the comrades-in-arms. Sergei Davidis, a member of the Memorial Human Rights Center, whose name is on the regional list of the Democratic Coalition, which actually collapsed in the spring, is shaking hands with his colleagues. A minute later, politician Ilya Yashin, who left the coalition during the spring crisis, joins the company. One of the organizers and the main inspirer of the rally is Leonid Volkov, a member of the central council of the Progress Party.

Gathering here in the woods proved to be no easy task. The rally organizers submitted their first notification to the authorities on July 11. At that time, the oppositionists planned to hold a high-profile rally on Slavyanskaya Square, almost under the windows of the presidential administration, but the mayor's office refused to coordinate the rally, suggesting that non-systemic politicians voluntarily move the meeting away from the "high" offices - to the deserted Yauza Square.

In fact, this is a paved patch in front of the junction of the Bolshoy Ustyinsky Bridge. The fighters against the regime, as expected, agreed to the conditions of the city hall and published an announcement on the Web: “July 26, Yauza Square, near the monument to the border guards.” But the authorities did not appreciate the concessions, and just a day before the mass rally, they notified the politicians that the prefecture of the Central Administrative District of Moscow had already agreed on another rally in the park, so the opposition "has no right" to gather at the monument.

While the organizers were choosing a new location, more than 96,000 people signed a petition on the website of the Russian Public Initiative demanding to repeal the law. As a result, on August 8, the applicants nevertheless managed to reach an agreement with the management of Sokolniki Park and agreed on the territory of the Green Theater - on a small summer stage west of the central alley - "a public event" In defense of Articles 23 and 24 of the Constitution, against Internet censorship and Internet surveillance, for the freedom of the Internet in Russia”. It was with this wording that the administration included the rally in the official schedule.

Between two fires

The declared number of participants is one thousand people. In fact, at least two thousand came. Most are youth. Some are not even eighteen. Dark-haired Grisha, hiding a homemade poster in a bag ("we haven't decided yet whether to unfold it or not"), is in the tenth grade. His friend Petya is seventeen, he admits that he came to a political action for the first time. Protect the Internet. The guy hastily asks if he missed something:

- Did any of the celebrities perform?

- Well, right now Navalny ... - I point to the stage where the politician convinces supporters "not to leave the protest."

- Oh, okay! Petya stands on tiptoe. For political reasons, both call themselves communists.

To the right of the teenagers are the flags of the Rot Front and the black and red banners of the anarchists. From the left flank, strong young men with the banner "Autonomous National Assembly of Moscow" settled. “NS” means “National Socialists,” comments the last one, smiling through goggles.

One of the associates returns from the stage and claps a friend on the shoulder: “Come on, there is“ Antifa ”and the Nigers!” His colleague, Dmitry Makarov, explains that they came to the rally at the invitation of Volkov himself. “I have been talking with Navalny for ten years.” “What about ideological differences?” “At the end of the 2000s, the Narod movement, co-chaired by Navalny at that time, spoke with us under common slogans, I myself was an DPNI activist, and that’s how we got to know each other.”

A little further from the "National Socialists" - the left-wing radicals from the Russian Socialist Movement (RSM) wrinkle their noses: "This is an eternal dispute, what should be the opposition coalition, how wide, we are anti-fascists, such allies are unacceptable for us, but since the organizers let them , we also stayed, do not leave, ”admits one of the leaders of the RSD, musician and poet Kirill Medvedev.

According to the former functionary of Solidarity and a candidate from the Democratic Coalition to the Duma on the regional list, Mikhail Schneider, it was agreed to come to the rally without party flags. When asked why the “rightists” and the communists did come with banners, he shrugs his shoulders: “Parnassus, as promised, is standing without.”

Twenty minutes later, Volkov summarizes from the stage: “The agenda has been exhausted. It's better to have a short and bright rally than vice versa." While the townspeople disperse, the leftists with the Nazis start a war of chants. "Blood - fatherland - faith," shout the Moscow "NS". "Freedom - equality - brotherhood," the communists standing directly opposite respond in the manner of church "antiphons".

A group of supporters of the parody movement “Yeltsin Death Brigades”—it turns out that they also came to the rally—moving past two fires, they chant their classic: “Yeltsin was a skin!” — causing both factions to freeze for a moment in bewilderment. At the metal frame at the exit, a flock of students in checkered shirts is going to the subway:

- Well, let's go for a drink?

- Yes, exactly, let's have coffee and go home!