The promotion for fair elections in Moscow for the first time in a month passed without mass detentions. Report "Medusa"

On August 17, in Moscow and St. Petersburg, the already traditional Saturday shares for honest elections and in support of the detainees in previous protest performances were held . In addition to the coordinated rally of the Communist Party on Moskovsky Prospekt Sakharov, single pickets took place in both cities. Unlike previous Moscow actions, there were no demonstrative detentions of the picketers and participants in the procession - the only activist who was taken to the police department was released without a protocol. In St. Petersburg, on the contrary, there were more than a dozen detentions again. Medusa correspondents monitored actions in both capitals.

Sretensky Boulevard between monuments of Nadezhda Krupskaya and Vladimir Shukhov

At the beginning of the second on Sretensky Boulevard, several gas stations were already standing. Near monuments to Nadezhda Krupskaya and engineer Vladimir Shukhov, police officers began to gather. In their hands they held helmets and batons.

At 13:45, the first picketer came to the monument to Shukhov - a regular participant in protest shares Grigory Saksonov with a Igor FSB poster - with this poster he goes to rallies for at least ten years. He said that when on the same day, an hour earlier, he came with a poster for the agreed Mit of the Communist Party on Sakharov Avenue, Gennady Zyuganov personally told him to leave, and then, according to Saksonov, pointed to the police officers.

Exactly at 14:00, a registered candidate for the Moscow City Duma member of Yabloko Sergey Mitrokhin came to the Krupskaya monument. He told reporters that he did not understand why only him was registered of all independent candidates. “Oddly enough, the most transparent procedure for checking signatures [in support of the nomination of candidates] was in court,” the politician said. - Why only I did it, I can’t say. If there is any plan of the authorities in this, I do not know anything about it. I continue to participate in protests, as you see. "

Picketers with posters “Freedom to Yegor Zhukov’s posters came to the Schukhov monument. Stop political terror ”,“ The arrest of Konstantin Kotov is a shame and a crime. ”

All this time, police officers with helmets and batons in their hands walked along the square between the monuments of Krupskaya and Shukhov back and forth. A gray -haired man with a cane heading to the Krupskaya monument, seeing the police, raised his hands over his head and turned to them: “Sons, and why are you without muzzles?” The police silently went on.

At this time, the words from the song were heard at the monument to Shukhov: “Why are you chasing, garbage, shnyagu is not on business. Why are you soaring me about bunks and a convoy. " It turned out that the song “Hop, garbage” performed by “thieves” was included by the young man with full volume through the portable column. Two police officers patrolling the square for an hour stood at the column and, quietly talking to each other, watched what was happening at the monument. There, still protesters came out in single pickets there.

Closer to three hours, the chairman of the political council of the Yabloko party, Grigory Yavlinsky, came to the square. When asked by the journalist about whether, in his opinion, the revolution in the near future, the politician replied that "no one knows this." "Who in 1985 could say that in five years the Soviet Union will cease to exist?" - asked the counter question Yavlinsky.

About four o’clock in the afternoon, the Vesti correspondent Yaroslav Krashenko came to the Krupskaya monument with the television operator. The journalist of "Russia" was in a checkered gray jacket and a bright flap tie.

The operator set the light, and Krashenko began to record a stand -up. “This is the first meeting in the last three weeks,” Krashenko said, walking towards the camera. A crowd of people (including journalists) surrounded him and began to shout: "Lie!" A man with a column replaced “Hop, garbage” to record the fairy tale “Teremok”. It was heard: “So they began to live by a four of them: a bunny is a white shirt, a wolf wolf from behind a bush of a grip ...” Krashenko forced to interrupt the record and sat down at the monument. “I would say that I think, if not for the camera,” the Vesti correspondent explained excitedly. “But what to do if 90 percent of the abnormal ones gathered here!” When Krasienko sat down at the monument and began to write a message on the phone, the gathered began to ask him: “As an employee of the state television channel, say what do you think about fires in Siberia? And about the situation in Shies? " In response, Krashenko got up and began to shoot on the camera of his mobile those who asked him questions.

From the speakers, the “comedian” of the rapper Face began to play. Two teenagers of 15 and 16 years old came to the Krupskaya monument, they told reporters that they have Alexei Navalny’s politicians, they came to the rally for the first time: “They did not dare to, they were afraid to get a club on the head.”

Two carzaks stood all day through the Sandal cafe through the road from the square near the cafe. At five in the evening, the newlyweds left the cafe with the guests. They were crumbled with rose petals, the bride and the groom began to bite the loaf, and then, laughing, they made a couple of selfies against the background of autosaks.

A few more times, Krasenko tried to step aside and write down a stand -up, but each time the crowd approached him with the shouts of “lies!”.

Holy Boulevard at the monument to Vladimir Vysotsky

By two o’clock in the afternoon, no more than 50 people gathered at the monument to Vladimir Vysotsky on a passionate boulevard, mostly journalists. Soon the first picketer appeared - a woman in a wheelchair. She introduced herself to Marina Vladimirovna and said that she came to the picket to support deputies who "did not go fraudulently." “We were left without the organizers [protests], so we only have to go out on single pickets,” she said.

Following her with the poster "Observe our constitution!" Elena Rusakova , the head of the Gagarinsky municipal district, in Moscow, who was not allowed to elections to the Moscow City Duma, stood up in a single picket. To the question about the defendants in Moskovsky’s business, Rusakova told reporters that she visited the city hall and tried to convince the employees of the regional security department that people have the right to spontaneous peaceful protests. But so far she was not able to achieve any result.

In addition to Rusakova, Grigory Yavlinsky and Sergey Mitrokhin, as well as an unregistered candidate for the Moscow City Duma Alexander Solovyov, came to the Vysotsky monument.

At the same time, on the other side of the monument, a new picketer appeared - an electrician Igor from Krasnodar. According to the man, he was forced to come to Moscow about the cruelty of OMON employees at rallies. Soon a policeman approached Igor himself, introduced himself (which usually does not happen) and politely asked to move 50 meters away, explaining that this was the norm of legislation . Igor obeyed, but in the next few hours now and then returned with a detailed poster closer to the monument, where other people stood with pickets.

A little further from the monument was a teenager with a white balloon, on the one hand the ball was written: "We are for honest elections." On the other hand, a fist is depicted against the background of strawberries and the inscription "Lenin state farm." The mother of the guy Svetlana told the Medusa correspondent that such were given at a rally of the Communist Party - he and her son came from Tver to the Communist promotion. “We were not [at a rally] on the 10th [August], but we saw on the Internet. This also concerns us. Because in our city worse than yours. We have no power, roughly speaking, at all, ”the woman explained.

There were also many students of the Higher School of Economics, who have been going to daily pickets in support of Yegor Zhukov for two weeks. 21-year-old Evgeny Lamin studies political science, he told the Medusa correspondent that he was always “close to a democratic, liberal agenda and opposition”. “I am not scared [go to stocks]. There is the main point here: this [detention and subsequent criminal case] can happen with absolutely everyone. The fact that this happened to Yegor or with the other 13 defendants in “Moscow business” is just a small accident, they found scapegoats. Understanding that this can happen to everyone, perhaps, kills fear. ”

The names of all the defendants in the Moscow Affairs are listed on the poster of Andrei Kazantsev. The man told reporters that he was working as an ITSHNIK, and fear brought him to the action. “Every year there are more and more landings, more and more pressure on ordinary people. These guys accidentally fell into this story, they did nothing wrong, ”he said. - I am afraid that I will have to live in a country in which repressions will become commonplace. I am afraid that my children will have to live in such a country. ”

Arbat

On the Old Arbat, a series of pickets took place in support of the defendants in Moscow Affairs. About four hours, several participants in the action decided to arrange a procession along a pedestrian street. He was headed by 17-year-old Olga Misik -she is a permanent participant in protest actions: two administrative affairs were instituted against her, and she herself became famous in the media by the fact that before the construction of riot police she read out the constitution. A group of 20 people several times passed from the beginning of the old Arbat to the Smolenskaya metro station and vice versa, chanting the slogans “We go for a walk!”, “C lustration!”, “This is our city!”, “It is a shame to stand aside!” And "We are power here!" Law enforcement officers did not respond to slogans. Random passers -by often reacted negatively: “They do not understand what they are doing”, “morons”, “they bought you all”. The insults stopped only when the protesters sang the anthem of Russia.

One of the curators of single pickets, a civilian activist Afonia Afanasyev, confirmed the Medusa correspondent that the initially did not plan a procession along the street. “Judging by the fact that they [protesters] diverge heavily, this may not end very well,” he added about the possible detention of the participants of the police by the police.

The employees tried to spend the first detention an hour after the start of the procession. Olga Misik entered the Koff House, the police at that moment followed her, they closed the entrance to the cafe for protesters and journalists. The audience chanted the door “Let go!”, “Police with the people, do not serve the freaks!” And "Olya!". Soon Misik was really released, and she quickly went towards the "Smolensk". Protesters followed her example. One of them - an unlimited protest activist Dmitry Baturo - continued to chant the “police with the people, do not serve freaks”, when several employees suddenly detained him hard . While Baturo was carried to Avtosak, he sang the anthem of Russia.

“Dear citizens, please disperse. Your action is illegal, ”a policeman began to repeat into Megaphone. Most of the participants in the procession left the street, some continued to stand at the car carrier, hoping that Baturo would be released. About six in the evening, the shouts of the young man came from the transport, which no one could make out. Avtozak left.

There were still several picketers who did not participate in the procession remained on the Old Arbat. They continued to hold the posters “Freedom to Kostov Kotov, cancel article 212” and “#admit! Freedom to Daniil Konon, Yegor Zhukov. "

Petersburg

Initially, St. Petersburg oppositionists planned a procession for honest elections on August 17, but Smolny refused to coordinate it. As a result, the format was replaced by a series of single pickets throughout the city center, the detention began before they began.

The first to detain the activist of the “unlimited protest” by Sergei Belyaev - right at the exit from the house on the complaint that he supposedly wants to organize mass riots (by the evening Belyaev was released). In total, up to 20 people came to the pickets, there were several hundred police officers and the Russian Guard - they even brought metal shields with them to the center of St. Petersburg. People went to Nevsky Prospekt with posters “Your Voice, Your Freedom”, “Elections without Choice” and “Changes require our hearts”, while they did not chant any slogans.

Less than five minutes after the start of the action, the first activist was detained - did she hold the poster “so Kotov or Putin - the enemy of the state? Freedom to the cats. " The second is a man who was trying to convince the police that their car carriers are parked with violations of the rules of the road. In total, 12 people were detained on single pickets - two of them, possibly, provocateurs: the Paper Paper writes that they were in auto -zaks for “swearing and twitched by phones” the organizer of the action.

The penultimate, 11th, the police took a man who held a poster in support of the accused in the “network” case and told passers-by about political prisoners. And the last, 12th, is a young man who tried to find out from the police, for which they detained the 11th.

After that, about 17 hours, the action ended, but the police remained on duty at Nevsky. Foreign tourists made selfie against the backdrop of riot police and tried to find out from passers -by why there were so many police on the streets.

Irina Kravtsova, Kristina Safonova, Pavel Merzlikin , Moscow, St. Petersburg