Ice Latrays

In Yekaterinburg, the peaceful procession of the supporters of Alexei Navalny grew up in a tough brawl with security forces

The authorities report that no more than three thousand people entered the protest campaign in the city. The head of the local headquarters Navalny calls a different figure - about ten thousand participants. It is really difficult to calculate all the Urals who have passed a dense column in the center of Yekaterinburg, but the human protest river on this day stretched about five kilometers.

About an hour before the start of the action when leaving the house, the police detained Viktor Raspov, an employee of the local headquarters of Navalny, all the others safely reached the collection site. The first hour of the promotion was peacefully. Yekaterinburgers gathered at the Dynamo metro station, where the security forces were already waiting for them. Exactly two o’clock a police car drove several times before the audience, a voice from the speaker warned everyone about responsibility for violation of the law. No one was impressed. And a dense column people moved along the previously planned route.

In the direction of the movement, the route had to be changed, on the dam (city center), police closed the pedestrian zone - an allegedly suspicious object was allegedly found. No one grumbled, the column went around the “dangerous” place. At the end point - in the square of the tetra drama - everyone came. Some late by the beginning of the procession fled to the theater on ice across the Iset River.

“At a temperature of minus 30, about ten thousand people gathered,” Alexei Gresko, coordinator of Navalny’s headquarters in Yekaterinburg, shared the impression. - Yekaterinburg showed the class: so many people came, we managed to carry out everything conceived, go to the end along the route.

People chased the slogans. According to the radio, the chiefs rushed riot police, stuck in a traffic jam. Several people stood with posters. One of them is the local artist Timothy Radia -

He held in his hands a sheet of Watman with the inscription "Peace to huts, war to palaces." It was on him that the police reacted especially acutely.

To the cries "Shame!" Radu was dragged to the car factory first. Squeezing the track in deep snow, the police began to grab people from the crowd. The brawl began when the equipped riot police rushed to the aid of the security forces. Passing the blows with batons to the right and left, they pushed the protesters.

After that, snowballs flew into the security forces. Having lined up in a row and frighteningly rumbling with batons on the shields, riot police divided the participants into groups, gradually squeezing them to the river.

Those who stumbled and fell into the snow were dragged into a car zak.

It was really difficult to run along the unforgettable in the center of the Ural capital of the sidewalks: both the security forces and the protesters. The remaining people were kicked out onto the ice, where they continued to beat with batons. The fallen was pressed face into the snow, then dragged into the car carrier.

“Straight an ice battle,” said the woman nearby. - Let these "knights" do not forget only how it ended.

The exact number of detainees in Yekaterinburg is still not known. The police were said to the “New” correspondent that they would not leave anyone at night, they would draw up administrative protocols and let go. One person was still left in the department before the court, he is accused of disobedience to police officers.