Not noticed on the procession

The organization of protests by the opposition’s leaders launched it on a chance. The process did not go

Photo - Evgeny Feldman

Last Sunday, February 2, 2014, to support people behind bars due to events in Bolotnaya Square, only a few thousand people came. There were no many leaders. Alexei Navalny helped the Rain television channel, speaking on the topic: what does it mean - to love his homeland (the television channel after an unsuccessful survey that caused a flurry of criticism, launched a special Sunday marathon). And in the afternoon he could not attend the march “for personal circumstances,” as Anna Vedita explained to his new press secretary.

Another active participant in Sitting strikes on Bolotnaya Ilya Ponomarev is now in his native Novosibirsk: he gives lectures on the topic “How to attract money to startups” and awards the winners of children's sports competitions - in a word, he does everything that a person who wants to occupy the mayor’s chair does. Left Front leader Sergei Udaltsov - under house arrest. So from the old guard only Dmitry Gudkov, Evgeny Chirikov and Boris Nemtsov came to the procession.

The action, as usual, agreed for a long time: on January 23, the applicants asked the city hall to coordinate the procession from the Belorussky station to Manezhnaya Square along the main street of the capital - Tverskaya. The city hall refused (what a surprise!), Having proposed in return for the procession of a rally on Sakharov Avenue. Was this refusal news for the organizers? It is unlikely. Then why was it necessary to defend the obviously inconsistent route with such persistence, wasting time for the preparation and wide alert of future participants in the action? This led only to one thing - many did not learn about the time and place of the action. Even the announcement of the event on Facebook did not record even two thousand activists who planned to go to the procession (usually the “go” checkpoint puts a much larger number of users).

Coordination of the route, diving with the mayor - traditional actions for the organizers of protest events, all steps can be predicted. It is impossible to predict only the reaction of people whom they do not talk to, whom they do not turn to. The reverse side of such actions of the opposition is the growth of the power rating and the “philosophical steamers” from protest to apathy.

Therefore, the defendants in the “swamp business” periodically feel lonely: the same persons come to the court - close friends, associates, journalists who regularly cover the process (very limited number), and some human rights activists. If thousands of crowds do not line up on the days of the hearings near the court building, so why should they come to the procession?

During the Sunday procession, they chanted: "There will be no freedom - there will be a Maidan." Such slogans in the center of Moscow sound sad when the leaders of the Russian opposition are doing each of their own business. Therefore, those who participate in all protest actions come to stocks - almost “veterans”, which, however, are hardly ready for the Maidan due to age. And the rest at the end of the event will be written on social networks about the next grandioster.

Even the coordination council of the opposition (QSO), the elections to which were held in an atmosphere of universal celebration and expectation of speedy changes, did not exist for a long time. And recently it became completely known that the second convocation of the CSR, most likely, would not be. “We decided that this idea is not in demand now,” said Ilya Konstantinov, a member of the working group for preparations for the elections.

The debate in the "Swamp process" will soon end. But it is unlikely that even an unfair sentence will collect a thousands of crowds at the court.

I would very much like to make a mistake.