On the night of May 14, the state disappeared in Yekaterinburg, and military brigades working in the interests of large businesses received the right to violence

A crowd of rocks enters the square near the city pond in Yekaterinburg from Yeltsin Street. Music sounds in the square, about 800 people dance under Scorpions and drive a round dance. I am among them. I observe. A minute passes: people run in a panic, pitching is catching up with them, beat and pour from gas cylinders. All this, according to them, is done "in the name of the faith of the Orthodox."

The police are watching the massacre. Do not interfere. This is how it was ...

There is a sequel
The second day of clashes from the temple

Breaking fences

Morning on May 13 began with the news: "The construction of the Church of St. Catherine started in Yekaterinburg." “Started” - it was said loudly: just at night the square at the city pond was fenced with aluminum fence and placed a tent with the first stone of the future temple.

The city boiled. Tollying rallies were held against the construction of the Church on the site of the main city square. And although the construction of the temple was authorized by the authorities of Yekaterinburg back in February, the opponents until the last hoped that a dialogue would begin with them.

A call appeared in social networks: by 19.00, gather at the city pond for a walk. About two thousand people come to the appointed time.

The walk immediately turns into "fighting". People are trying to rock the fence, and they do it with ease. For some time, the guards of the Russian Copper Company are trying to keep the fence on the spot-one of the sponsors of the construction of the temple.

But the "walking" nevertheless lie on the fence and rush into the square.

And a real walk begins: people turn on music, talk, someone takes out a badminton rackets. The young man in the T -shirt “Square” sits with his back to the guards and begins to play glucophone.

“In general, my name is Katya Lavtikova, but today I am nature Anatolyevna,” the girl jokes in a dark blue dress with a wreath of artificial roses. - I came here because the story with the square for me is a knife to my heart. I can’t watch how the last green zones are being built up in our city. Moreover, they are built up without dialogue with the inhabitants: after all, no one asked us, but I do not like it when they don’t ask me.

In fairness, it is worth saying that public discussions on land surveying for the construction of the temple were held. If you believe the official figures, 3 107 people spoke “for” construction, “against” - only 192. Opponents of the construction of the temple do not recognize these figures, noting that almost no one was informed about public hearings.

Closer to nine in the evening, a walk turns into a disco. From portable columns sound: “Nautilus”, Queen, Scorpions and, of course, “Changes!” Victor Tsoi. A hundred people drive a round dance around a tent with guards, singing Katyusha. Scandration is heard "To be a square!" And "This is our city!"

The police do not intervene. Nobody thinks to raise a fallen fence at all.

And very few people pay attention to the fact that on Boris Yeltsin Street, on the approaches to the square, a crowd of sports guys gathered in T -shirts in the T -shirts of the Martial Arts of the Russian Copper Company. On the clock - without a quarter eleven.

Legs, gas and icon

The pitching runs into the square, as if on command (later they will say: “There was a team from above, from God”).

A moment later, a mess begins: young men grab the audience, push them out of the square. They beat, swear, scoff. A guy in a black T -shirt and a black cap pushes me into the shoulder: “What are you taking pictures? I got out of here. " I'm trying to explain: "I am a journalist." The answer is simple: "In *** (face) is it necessary?"

No more than a minute passes, and the square is completely cleaned, the fence around it is restored.

- Are you fucked up? - shouts one of the "athletes" a guy in a jeans jacket. - You beat a girl from me! Why did you hit the girl?

Opponents find themselves on opposite sides of the fence: athletes remain in the fenced square and interfere with the “walking” to break the fence again. The “walking” themselves periodically manage to pull the concrete blocks on which it is attached from under the fence. There is an endless border. Every now and then, specially heated activists fall on the fence to enter into a fight. But the power is clear superiority among athletes. Among them they notice the famous boxer Magomed Kurbanov and fighter MMA Ivan Shtyrkov. Both, according to the media reports, are graduates of the Martial Arts of the Russian Copper Company.

After another portion of mutual insults, the fence is raised by the athletes themselves.

One of them runs out into the crowd of “walking” and sprays pepper gas from the spray can.

The police, who had only been watching what was happening before, has enough athlete with a spray can, but the rest of the pitching drag him back by the fence. Having consulted a little, the police are still heading for the fence and “take” the sprayed gas.

After half an hour, they begin to delay already “walking”. However, it is also unsuccessfully: only one person is taken to the department. Two more the crowd manages to recapture.

While the police are trying to conduct detention, the athletes begin to throw people with half-liter water bottles. Those in response chanted: "Fascists!"

At some point, one of the strokes takes out a large icon of the “Savior of the Emergency” and begins to walk with her in a circle. Then he stops and reads something on the screen of a mobile phone.

- What is your icon? - the girl asks him on the other side of the fence.

“It is not customary for women to talk in Orthodoxy in Orthodoxy,” the athlete cuts off. Then he bypasses the fence with the icon, reading the prayer.

By two in the morning, the police are leaving. The “walking” gradually diverges: by 2.30 there are no more than 150 people. Athletes still remain with the fence in full force. The parties cannot be carried out by the parties: the protesters do not understand why their opinion about the future of the square can not be asked, and the athletes do not understand exactly the same, "how can one oppose the temple?"

By 5.30 in the morning of Tuesday, protesters diverge. Behind the fence, two dozen strokes remain the tent with the first stone of the temple.

It seems that none of the parties is ready to compromise in Yekaterinburg. Defenders of the square and supporters of construction promise new mass shares.

REFERENCE

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Disputes around the construction of the Church of St. Catherine have not subside in Yekaterinburg for 9 (!) Years. In 2010, the Yekaterinburg diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church proposed to build a cathedral on labor Square. Protest began in the city, and the diocese abandoned its plans.

In 2016, the churchmen had two powerful allies-the general director of the Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company (UMMC) Andrei Kozitsyn and the chairman of the board of directors of the Russian Copper Company (RMK) Igor Altushkin. They decided to build the temple of St. Catherine right in the water area of ​​the Yekaterinburg city pond. To do this, it was supposed to pour an island in the center of the pond, and from both shores to build approaches to it. The idea caused protests even more seriously than in 2010. The governor of the Sverdlovsk region had to intervene Evgeny Kuyvashev. As a result, the construction was wrapped and offered a new option: the temple instead of the square.

One of the initiators of the construction of the temple Andrei Kozitsyn, responding in an interview with the portal E1 to dissatisfaction with the townspeople, said: “Wherever he [the temple] was, some people are bad everywhere. All the places that were previously offered for various reasons did not suit a certain number of people. They are always there, these people: no matter what happens, it is better to do nothing. It is necessary to protest against something. ”

Who is power here?

The most amazing and unpleasant in history with a massacre in the center of Yekaterinburg is the complete self -removal of the authorities.

Neither the mayor of Yekaterinburg Alexander Vysokinsky, nor the governor of the Sverdlovsk region, Evgeny Kuyvashev, came to the scene of the conflict. They preferred not to notice what was happening, although they made the most fundamental decisions in history with the construction of the temple.

Both commented on the situation only the next day.

Vysokinsky explained to people by the fact that "he left work at midnight." By this time, by the mayor, the conflict was only gaining momentum.

Governor Kuyvashev invited supporters and opponents of the construction of the temple to negotiate in his residence. “Street conflicts are not a path that can be solved. I think that the most correct step now is to organize a direct conversation with each other. <...> I am waiting in my office for five representatives on each side, ”Kuyvashev wrote on Instagram.

- At the same time, the government made an attempt to filter the list of participants. We were directly stated that there are people whom I would not want to see at the meeting.

“( Continues ) for example, political scientist Fedor Krasheninnikov, who is one of the most active defenders of the square, or journalist Rinat Nizamov,” the Yekaterinburg public activist Dmitry Moskvin told Novaya Gazeta. - We believe that the governor should not collect closed meetings, but should go out to the street and answer their questions.

However, whether the governor’s meeting can at least theoretically change the current situation is incomprehensible. The Russian Orthodox Church has already stated that the temple would be built, despite protests. “The church is not ready for a compromise on the construction of the temple. It is at the place where they plan to start that the construction will continue in any case, ”the senior priest Maxim Chanylo said at a briefing.

Most of all, in history with a night confrontation in the center of Yekaterinburg, the police were surprised in the role of statists. The law enforcement officers simply watched the athletes by force expelled people from the square, and simply parted when almost 250 more participants in the conflict remained on the spot.

It was not possible to get a commentary on the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs about the inaction of the police Novaya Gazeta: the press secretary of the department Valery Gorelykh referred to employment.

The situation when a hundred well -trained athletes arranges a fight in the city center, when the crowd for almost six hours leads to a skirmish in high colors, it cannot be normal in any civilized state. But all the authorities behaved that night as if nothing special was happening.

Do Yekaterinburg officials and security officials understand that in the fourth in size of the city of Russia, an unregistered combat formation, whose activities are not regulated by the state, are acting anywhere?

Or maybe the state is afraid of it?

The projects of the Russian Copper Company have amazing support from athletes involved in e2 martial arts. The same athletes beat Chelyabinsk activists protesting against another construction of the RMK-the Tominsky Mining and Processing Plant (Tominsky GOK). Is there any Academy of martial arts of RMK to prepare combat detachments “to protect business”?

However, the Russian Copper Company already made it clear that it is an independent “state”, to which even the President of Russia is not a decree. In November 2017, Vladimir Putin talked with activists of the Chelyabinsk movement Stopgok, opposing the construction of the Tominsky plant. The company, according to Chelyabinsk, can poison the only drinking source of the city - the Shershnevsky reservoir. “I share your concern and I think that projects of this kind should not be resolved in the backstage and exclusively at the administrative level,” the president said activist Vasily Moskovtsu.

However, after four days, the Governor of the Chelyabinsk Region Boris Dubrovsky informed the protesters that the Tominsky GOK would still be built. And the presidential administration soon stopped correspondence with them.

According to some reports, the owner of the President, the owner of the RMK Igor Altushkin, was able to place just thanks to the relations with the Russian Orthodox Church: the “Russian Copper Company” was the largest victim of the church, and Patriarch Kirill himself flew to the airborne RMC.