The movement celebrated the anniversary of the Ukrainian revolution

On Saturday, November 21, members of the Anti-Maidan movement held a commemorative event in the center of Moscow dedicated to the second anniversary of the Ukrainian Euromaidan. Activists recreated the situation of Ukrainian protests on Gogolevsky Boulevard - they tried to build a barricade from sandbags, scattered tires and riot shields. This installation was supposed to evoke sympathy among Muscovites for the soldiers of the Berkut police unit, who tried to stop the protest, but were unable to do so. However, the townspeople ignored the exhibition, and the Russian police completely demanded that the event end three hours earlier than the time stated by the organizers.

On Saturday, Ukraine celebrated Dignity and Freedom Day, a new public holiday established by President Petro Poroshenko in memory of Euromaidan. Let us recall that on November 21, 2013, a protest began in the center of Kiev after the government of Mykola Azarov announced the suspension of the signing of the association agreement between Ukraine and the European Union. A few days later, fighters from the special forces unit of the Ministry of Internal Affairs “Berkut” violently dispersed the rally on Independence Square. Footage of police beating unarmed students with batons caused widespread outrage, after which hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians came to the Maidan to protest. The standoff between the protesters living in the tent camp and the police lasted for several months and resulted in casualties on both sides. Euromaidan ended with a change of power in the country, and some residents of south-eastern Ukraine refused to recognize it, and armed conflict is still ongoing in these territories.

The Anti-Maidan movement arose in January 2015 on the basis of several public organizations - the Night Wolves motorcycle club, the Union of Russian Paratroopers, the Russian Spring movement and others. The movement was led by the leader of the Night Wolves, Alexander Zaldostanov, nicknamed the Surgeon, writer Nikolai Starikov and singer Vika Tsyganova. A month later they held a large rally in Moscow on Revolution Square. According to the participants, more than 100 thousand people attended (the police counted 35 thousand participants). However, after this, Anti-Maidan did not carry out large street actions, but focused on paperwork, overwhelming the Investigative Committee with numerous complaints against oppositionist Alexei Navalny, Open Russia Mikhail Khodorkovsky, as well as the Hells Angels and Bandidos motorcycle clubs competing with the Night Wolves.

However, the anniversary of the events on Maidan Nezalezhnosti in the “Anti-Maidan” could not be missed. The movement decided to remind itself of itself by installing an installation in the center of Moscow warning Muscovites against protest sentiments. Its main characters were the fighters of the Ukrainian "Berkut". At the beginning of Gogolevsky Boulevard, activists recreated a section of Kyiv's Berkut Alley - the place on Grushevsky Street where a police detachment held back protesters. The movement took the preparation of the “art object” so seriously that they finished installing it only an hour after the official start of the action. The artistic object was a huge white canvas on which a tree was casually depicted in brown paint. Nearby, the authors of the work tried to depict barricades - real tires, iron barrels, and bags tightly filled with sand were lying on the boulevard. Shields of Berkut fighters, helmets and gas masks were scattered around. According to one of the authors of the work, he bought all these items on the Internet: “I just picked up the barrels from Zelenograd yesterday, I barely had time.” But the activists themselves called the burnt wooden signs the central part of the object.

“There is a documentary film from one TV channel,” says Valery Zaborovsky, a spokesman for the Anti-Maidan movement, smiling, about the sources of inspiration of his comrades. “It shows how a Euromaidan activist picks up a sign with the inscription “Fascism will not pass,” breaks it and says: "We passed". Our activists came up with the idea to recreate these destroyed signs.”

The inscription on one of the signs reads: “Even though we are few in number, we are from Berkut, our blow is precise and heavy,” and the signature is Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin. “It’s clear that Pushkin didn’t say anything like that,” admits one of the activists. “But we wanted to keep the signs as they were in the photo, with all the punctuation marks and even mistakes.” However, on another sign the swastika is covered with tape just in case.

Steel structures and wooden planks blocked half the boulevard. However, nothing interfered with the passage of citizens - during the entire time of the action, no more than thirty people became interested in the installation, including an organized group of students. They silently studied the art object for about half an hour, shifting from foot to foot to keep warm. Some took selfies together against the background of the barricades, but, by their own admission, they did not really understand what the art object symbolized.

— If this is an exhibition, at least they should sign on the sign what it’s about. To be honest, I don’t know very well what happened that day,” admits 17-year-old technical college student Evgeniy. “But I have a bad attitude towards those events, of course.

- Why bad?

- Because this is not very good.

- Why are you here?

- To support.

- Whom?

- Team.

- Which?

- Our. Our team. A friend actually called me. Usually I only go to Thai boxing.

Other students also find it difficult to answer why their team came to the Anti-Maidan rally. “As far as I know, this installation is timed to coincide with the events of last year, when the civil war began in Ukraine. In general, I wasn’t there, I don’t know what happened,” says the young man quietly, who refused to give his name. Having learned that the events in Kyiv are already two years old, he shrugs his shoulders. However, his attitude towards Berkut’s actions is clearly positive: “Did they beat up students? Those students were paid money, I don’t feel sorry for them.”

Conversations with journalists are interrupted by a short girl in a down jacket, who with signs forbids them to answer questions. The young people fall silent in fear and hastily go away to smoke. When asked who she is, the girl shrugs and replies that “she’s just standing here.” Nevertheless, the students leave, shouting to the journalists in parting: “You are provocateurs! Don't come near us!

Instead, Valery Zaborovsky approaches the journalists. “I don’t know why so few people came,” he is perplexed. “We widely announced the event on social networks, made announcements for the media. Probably not promoted well enough. Or the weather is bad." At some point, he switches from talking about Ukraine to the Syrian topic: “We are against the war, no matter where it is fought, but first of all we still work with the Russian people. The “Combat Brotherhood” was engaged in supplying humanitarian aid to Donbass, and now they are helping Syria in the same way. Not long ago, one of our co-chairs, Dmitry Sablin, flew there and met with Bashar al-Assad, so we are monitoring the situation and helping as much as we can.”

Suddenly a police officer approached him and demanded that he immediately remove the installation from the boulevard. The action was supposed to last another three hours, but the “anti-Maidanovites” did not object and obediently dismantled the art object.

Evgenia Ofitserova, Alexander Chernykh

Anti-Maidan set up barricades in Moscow