"New Force" against migration

Over the past few weeks, several actions have already taken place on Krasnopresnenskaya Zastava Square. It’s a common thing - you come out of the subway and are greeted by people with placards. But today everything looked a little different. No posters, loudspeakers or chants. Instead, activists of the little-known and so far unregistered New Force party pitched a tent. A man stands in it and collects signatures for an appeal to President Putin. “New Power” wants Putin to introduce a visa regime with the countries of Central Asia and the Caucasus, that is, as activists say and write on their leaflets, “to stop migration.”

It’s cold just standing in the square, so the guy in the tent also pours tea for those who want it (of course, those who signed the appeal). Besides him, there are about five other people walking around the square with pieces of paper - asking passers-by to sign, handing out “Stop Migration” leaflets and a newspaper – also “Stop Migration”. All are middle-aged men, only a few young guys, 22-23 years old.

I go up to the tent to look at the appeal, a woman in a gray down jacket, a black hat and with a large package in her hands signs next to me. “Is it possible that THEY shouldn’t be allowed in at all? The visa regime is not enough for them,” the woman hysterically addresses the signature collector. He begins to babble something about the law - the woman is clearly not satisfied with the answer. She apparently wants “them” to be packed into carriages and sent home right now. One of the organizers, Dmitry Feoktistov, a man with a red mustache, eagerly talks about the event and the party. He says that they were forbidden to hold a rally, but collecting signatures is welcome. They need to collect 100 thousand signatures - but they will act in an original way: Feoktistov says that the petition will be sent directly to the president, and not to the Duma - it seems that no one trusts the State Duma anymore, not even right-wing conservative activists. True, then, in any case, the signatures will come to parliament, but they will have already been to the presidential administration.

Among the young activists with flags, I accidentally notice an old acquaintance who, like me, studied at the history department of Moscow State University. For some reason he turns away from me in embarrassment, but I go straight ahead. There’s nothing to be done here, he smiles awkwardly and says that he’s actually going to join the party, and with him are his future comrades. One of them is also a member of the history department. He just enters the conversation and tries to give a theoretical justification for the fact that it’s time to take migrants seriously: “Have you heard about Kolokoltsev’s report for the last year? The largest number of crimes are committed by migrants!” (in fact, Kolokoltsev said “newcomers”). To my question whether we should always trust what Kolokoltsev says, he retorts in surprise: “Why would he lie to him?!”

I approach the main organizer, whose photo is on the front page of the Stop Migration newspaper. Valery Solovey is a bald man in dark glasses and a black coat. He tells everything the same as Feoktistov said, almost word for word.

Meanwhile, the police come into the tent to drink tea. I'm trying to take a photo of one of them with a plastic cup. For some reason, he hastily puts it back and, apparently, goes to complain about me to the elder: they say, you can’t even drink tea in peace anymore. In general, the police behave extremely friendly. The recent rally in support of political prisoners, which took place at the same place, near the Ulitsa 1905 Goda metro station, was also coordinated with the authorities. Only then did it all end with the arrests of the organizers: one of them was dragged by the police by the hands in the snow. And now they are drinking tea. But the work is in full swing: suddenly a drunk man with a friend appears in line to sign up. The drunk man asks me to take a photo of him “for the front page,” and also admits that he doesn’t know what he’s going to sign now—he just wants to participate. His friend, a dark man with an aquiline nose, also seems to be drunk. Both are taken out of the line by police and then released.

I ask the guy standing by the tent why migrants are bothering him and why he is participating in this. He answers: “Migrants are different. Let scientists come to us. But we don’t need workers. We have enough of our own unemployed.”

Meanwhile, the petition is signed by a grandmother in a headscarf and two young girls in multi-colored down jackets. I find myself next to a policeman, whose radio says: “Attention. Groups of foreign citizens (no one checked their documents, of course) two people each have gathered at the monument.” I turn around and see two unsuspecting Asians calmly talking nearby. A few meters away from them there are several more people - apparently they work near the metro, and they hardly suspect that the police are seriously reporting them on the radio.

It's getting colder, there are fewer and fewer signatories. I come up to find out how much they collected in an hour, he says, 100, not counting those who walked around the square and separately collected signatures. I take the Stop Migration newspaper and head to the metro. An elderly man with glasses looks at me with bewilderment, and I look at the square with sadness.