Twenty -two years later

The “workshop” of protest actions in the Zavtra cafe club February 4: 22 years later. At half the night on January 26, the Moscow City Hall agreed on the procession of “angry townspeople” along the route Kaluga Square - the big Yakimanka - Bolotny. Even the day before, the city authorities, with the submission of the new head of the presidential administration, Sergei Ivanov, categorically refused to coordinate the event, and it seemed that the opposition would have to go out into the streets with a great chance to run into batons. As they say, the highest forces intervened: President Dmitry Medvedev called mayor Sergei Sobyanin. As angry townspeople, they are preparing for the procession at the temperature of minus 20 - the NEW Times found out the marketer by profession and the leader of the Facebook group “Resistance”, to meet with The New Times, not one, but at once with two ally: Nadia (we admit names at their request). The tanned-New Year's holidays spent on the islands of Indonesia, tall and even dressed in a bright blue sports jacket Nikolai immediately forced himself to turn around. And the blondes were to match him. All three - 25 with a tail of years. Dressed are simple, but stylish. Nikolai and Anya are old friends, several years ago they came to conquer Moscow from Rybinsk. Nadia in the company recently - I met resistance in December through Facebook. All with higher education: Nikolai works as a manager in a European company, Anya is an engineer by education, but money earns money in an IT company, also a manager. Nadia, having received a diploma of a teacher of German and English, found her place in the state corporation, so he tries not to spread about herself. He says that at work about her civic activity is not yet guessed: “But if they find out and dismiss, I will not lower it. They will not sleep calmly, ”says Nadia. However, the problems foresee all three. “There is information that the ourselves collect dossiers on us,” they explain.

Biologist Nikolai Formozov took up the protest song	Nikolai Belyaev reads new initiatives "Resistance"

“Resistance” “Everything is fine with us: work, salary,” says Nikolai. - But the previous 10 years the world economy has experienced a boom, oil prices have doubled. Many felt this? No. But this was felt by Putin's friends, a cooperative "Lake". Of course, I have more or less, but my grandmother has a pension of 6 thousand rubles. And none of us can afford to buy housing in Moscow. ” Nikolai is not a newcomer in protest: he entered the Strategy 31 shares. But Anya, in her own words, until December was an absolutely apolitical person: “When I first saw Medvedev’s face on TV, I turned it off and stopped watching at all.”

Nadia’s curious story: in 2003, still a student, she went to work at the United Russia headquarters: “Then it seemed that it was a normal party with a good program. And there I saw how EP is achieving their results: students were forced to vote under the threat of deductions and evictions from the hostel. ”

A turning point for them was December 4, parliamentary elections: “Well, there is some point in a person, when something breaks in it and he understands that everything, he cannot,” says Nadia. “I just suddenly realized: it's time to raise my apolitical fifth point,” Anya smiles.

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Eduard Uspensky: “I am with great sympathy for the protest movement. And the fact that Cheburashka is now working like this, on the case, I like "

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All three admit that they were simply shocked by the number of arrests after the first rallies. “I thought that we would roll up to the police state in this way,” says Nikolai. Therefore, he decided to act. At first he went to open meetings of the organizing committee, thought to offer his help, but he did not like it there. Then he collected a group of friends, bought dozens of meters of a white tape, cut into small ones and handed them out on the street. “Everything that could spend, 40 thousand rubles, spent,” he says.

Member of the Organizing Committee of the procession Yuri Saprykin called on those gathered to creative

After a rally to Bolotnaya, Nikolai saw a message on the Internet: if there are ideas about preparing for a new rally, welcome to the Theater Club “Workshop”. Go. He talked about his ideas, listened to others. After that, the “Resistance” group appeared on the Facebook social network: “We are not tied to a specific rally or march. Our task is to wake up those citizens who are still sleeping, and force those who have already woken up, but they are afraid, ”Nikolai explains. The group is engaged in completely trivial projects: white ribbons, stickers, posters and leaflets with agitation, stencils for street drawings, organize flash mobs in order to wake up those citizens who are still not enough angry. Their most famous project is stickers with Cheburashka, campaigning for honest elections. Resistants respect the copyrights: permission to Cheburashka received directly from its creator - writer Edward Uspensky. “I am with great sympathy for the protest movement. And the fact that Cheburashka is now working like that, on the case, I like it, ”said the Assumption The New Times. The volunteers of the “Resistance” distributed stickers with Cheburashka on Sakharov Avenue, and many protesters glued them directly on outerwear.

At the meetings of the "workshop" with protest ideas, any angry city dweller can be performed	Anatoly Katz promised to calculate the participants in the procession so that the figure was not falsified

What do they want in the group of more than 600 people now, an active backbone is 30–40 people. Money for all initiatives is collected through Yandex-Poschelles. Before the protest on Sakharov Avenue, members of the organizing committee also helped. However, from excess gratitude they do not suffer: “In the“ workshop ”we realized that we ourselves can do everything and we do not need politicians,” Nikolai summarizes.

When asked what changes they want to achieve without politicians, the guys answer: "Control over the authorities." “We do not need power itself. It doesn’t matter to us who will conduct changes in the country, Putin or someone else. The main thing is that our power becomes modern. We are employers, they are managers to whom we pay salaries, ”says Nikolai. “Of course, we know that we are accused: here you have no leader. But there is no environment in which a person may appear to lead. Maybe we are now preparing the ground so that it grows up, ”adds Anya. - And we do not need leaders at all. We need managers. "

They also learn to conduct mass events independently: along with the movement “Civil action” on January 28, they held their small rally on Pushkinskaya Square - in support of the procession on February 4.

Click to increase the workshop of the forge of volunteers - the “workshop of protest actions”: the first meetings of the creative workers after Bolotnaya were initiated by Masha Hessen, the editor -in -chief of the magazine “Around the World”. At first they took place in the Club “Workshop” (hence the name of the evenings), but this place quickly found itself under the close attention of law enforcement agencies. Now they are gathering in one of the halls of the Zavtra cafe club on Sretenka. All volunteers came via the Internet, the notifications of meetings are published on the Facebook page “A rally for fair elections. Promotions and volunteering. " Zavtra has everything you need: chairs in several rows, 50 people, tables, an impromptu scene with microphones, a bar for smokers. The waiters can order food and drinks. The situation is creative and informal.

Walking to the evening gathering on January 23, one could find out on the way from the metro. So, in front of The New Times there were two girls with white ribbons in their hair, with them a low mobile man in a dark blue coat. As it turned out later, an official of one of the departments of the Moscow government. He asked to keep his name secret with the words: "I have three more families to feed!"

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Our task is to wake up those citizens who are still sleeping, and force those who have already woken up, but they are afraid

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The audience is very different. If there were a lot of young people (and, of course, hipsters!) At the December gathering in the “Workshop”, then in January there were many those who over thirty. And next to the New Times correspondent, a very gray-haired man was sitting who constantly smiled and something elusively reminded Yuri Kuklachev, a biologist and teacher of one of the capital's universities, Nikolai Formozov.

By the beginning of the event, there were almost no free places in the hall, but people are still noticeably smaller than at December meetings. Masha Gessen says that it is natural - the delight of the first rallies has passed, and besides, many different groups have already formed on Facebook - they all do not come, send their representatives.

For beginners, the rules are voiced at the meeting: “You go out, having previously signed up in the queue, and tell what you are already doing or are going to do and what you don’t have enough - money, people, what else,” says Hessen.

A biologist of forms immediately goes to sign up for a girl at a computer. But first, the microphone is given to Yuri Saprykin, the chief editor of the United Company Afisha-Rabler and a member of the Organizing Committee of the procession. He says: “The elections to the Duma were long, and nothing changed after the rallies. Apathy covers people. And there are also representatives of the organizing committee who behave as if rallies are a way on our heads to enter the Kremlin, ”Saprykin is angry, and the hall explodes with applause. “Therefore, we must convey to everyone that we can affect power only by number.” And he also says: “There will be many slogans and banners, under which we are not ready to subscribe. In order not to be wiped, and people are not disappointed, you need to figure out what to amuse themselves. Any ideas: trucks, brass bands, pyramids of physical education - the devil knows what. The main thing is that our action be bright and memorable, so that ourselves from her ourselves, ”Saprykin concludes and again breaks the applause.

After it, a biologist of forms takes possession of the microphone. He offers to lay out an announcements about the procession by mailboxes. Someone from the hall screams that they are already being laid out. Then he offers to compose chants, but someone also took care of this. “Since such a thing, let's organize a protest song contest,” says Biologist Formozov and immediately agrees to take up the project.

After him, the same Nikolai Belyaev appears on the stage. The audience meets him with prolonged applause. He briefly lists the new initiatives of “resistance”: to fill up the whole country with white ribbons, make a photo shoot “For honest elections” with naked people, conduct a survey and draw up a rating of popularity of presidential candidates, launch in balls with helium posters with a request to come to the elections on March 4, arrange a “crying along Putin” and so on. “For this, we need money and people - for example, a poster,” Nikolai concludes.

Ideas - over the edge. For example, to organize an exchange of unnecessary things at the procession and even something like a “dating club”, to arrange theatrical performances with growth dolls in the form of Putin and Medvedev. And Anatoly Katz, a thin curly guy with hair intercepted in the tail, offers his method to determine the number of those who came to the protest action: “My employer agreed to support this project. We will have a camera and an operator. I will write a special program that will allow people to calculate the speed of the flow. But I need three more volunteers. ” The initiative causes stormy approval.

The evening ends with a brainstorm. The presenters say: imagine that the procession has begun, but it - well, do not like it. Why? "Boring!" - shouts the hall - “Cold!”, “We will reach the rally, and there are these on stage!”

The microphone takes a young woman in a red tracksuit: “Listen, I'm a mother of two children. I came here for the first time. I thought - a serious event, and you are discussing how to make it fun! We are not going there for fun! ” “So, the power is afraid of laughter,” a biologist of forms answers her universal joy.