Closed city

Petersburg becomes, if not a cradle, then the main protest on the map of the country. Report from the action January 31

A week ago, a column of protesters walked along Nevsky Prospekt from Palace Square to the Kazan Cathedral, almost not meeting resistance from law enforcement officers. This Sunday, both sides increased the rates: the headquarters of Navalny in St. Petersburg called on January 31 to go to Nevsky immediately to Smolny, and the police mobilized the maximum amount of effort.

Those who early Saturday morning, a day before the action, were near Palace Square, could observe a real military parade with the construction of the forces of the Russian Guard and OMON. Palace Square and the Alexander Garden were cordoned off in the city,

Fences were installed on two sides along Nevsky Prospekt, and heavy equipment was launched on the streets and embankments of rivers and channels crossing the main city highway.

On Sunday, January 31, in the morning a wave of searches and detentions swept through the city: the security forces came to the apartment of the artist Daria Apakhonchich (previously she got into the list of the first five individuals recognized by the Ministry of Justice of foreign agents), to the leader of the “Beautiful Petersburg” movement Ksovmir Vranskoy, several Mundy and activists.

By 10:00, the city center was almost completely blocked for transport. Two rows of snowplow machines, the security forces blocked all the entrances and approaches to the main city highway. According to eyewitnesses, the police inspected cars driving on the palace bridge and moving towards the center.

The metro stations “Chernyshevskaya”, “Admiralteyskaya” and all the exits from Nevsky Prospekt were closed. Those who rose from the metro at the “Gostiny Dvor” were met by riot police with shields - in each arch of the facade of the building.

To get to Nevsky or simply cross him, a passport was required - the police checked the passers -by in the city center. Many Petersburgers were sincerely outraged that they had matured things and meetings. So, on Malaya Morskaya Street, where by 11:00 there was a correspondent of Novaya, through the cordons, only employees of the Hermitage were passed, upon presentation of a certificate. In all other places of the cordon, the police did not allow journalists in vests in the center, with certificates and editorial tasks, nor people who were in a hurry to work, even if they presented the documents.

- Are you kidding? People are waiting for me! - shouted, hanging over the fence, a man on a lieutenant colonel.

“You can try through the area of ​​labor, but you will not pass there either,” the policeman answered politely. - Can you transfer your meeting? Better transfer.

In Smolny, they could not explain the reason for the ceiling of the central city streets.

“This issue needs to be addressed to the police, they were engaged in the overlap of the streets,” said Kirill Zakrevsky, press secretary of the Committee on Law, Law and Narcraction and Security of St. Petersburg.

The press service of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region, in turn, promised that the reason for the sudden overlap of key highways and bridges would be named, but later.

At 11:30, half an hour before the start of the action, the headquarters of Navalny announced a change of gathering place and called people to Pionerskaya Square, to the Test. The journalists were the first in place, and then the first protesters began to accumulate on the steps of the theater.

- There is nobody? - Looking into the distance, the audience spoke.

-They will go ...

Sirens already sounded in the distance.

12:30. Petersburgers continued to flock to the Tsuza, according to our estimates, there were already more than one and a half thousand. The first point detentions began. The few at that time, riot police tried to divide the crowd into groups, but acted randomly and inorganized.

The rally on the pioneer with dancing under the "Aquadiscopus" lasted about an hour. While the reinforcement of the security forces was pulled to the scene, the crowd settled down and dispersed along the roadway. People went to Zvenigorodskaya, Pravda Street and Zagorodny Prospekt. Arriving fresh law enforcement forces began to catch protesters along the surrounding streets.

Here, near Borodinskaya, the first resonant incident of the protest day happened: five riot police attacked a man who tried to resist the detention. He was pressed against the wall, used batons, eyewitnesses noticed in their hands stemociers. "Help! Why are you standing? " He shouted to the crowd. In the car, where the new journalist of the Novaya was also an unconscious state with him. When he came to his senses, the bus drove to the police department in Sestroretsk - the nearest areas were rapidly filled with citizens.

Protesters, meanwhile, determined the further route: along the suburban, and then Moskovsky Prospekt and Gorokhovaya Street towards Sennaya Square. The participants in the action at some distance were followed by the police: the column of riot police and several autosaks.

By 14 o’clock, the bulk of the protesters reached Sennaya Square. A little later there, in addition to the police and riot police, reinforcements arrived in the form of several dozen employees of the internal troops of the Russian Guard. Both in the direction of movement and on hay, people actively resisted the detentions, which, according to eyewitnesses, were clearly more this Sunday than last Saturday. In response, the police used special equipment. Among others

Journalists, even those who were dressed in identification vests with the inscription "Press", also got into the autozaki. On January 31, the correspondents of Kommersant, MR7, Moscow Komsomolets and Novaya Gazeta were detained on January 31.

From Sennaya Square, Petersburgers headed for the building of the city parliament. The number of the crowd in the square in front of the Mariinsky Palace, according to approximate estimates of journalists, reached two thousand people. The police tried to squeeze out by all means dissatisfied with the square in front of the building of the Legislative Assembly. The crowd was dispersed and began to return to the Tyuz in a roundabout way. On Gorokhovaya followed by a dozen auto -zaks and the same number of empty buses for future detentions.

The Pushkinskaya and Zvenigorodskaya metro stations at that time were closed, according to the official version, “due to the detection of ownerless objects”. The station "Gostiny Dvor" trains drove without stopping, the driver announced that it was closed "for technical reasons." Mayakovskaya, Square of uprising and Chernyshevskaya were also closed to the exit. At the Youth Theater, the detention continued. They were no longer as massive as before, but passed very hard.

By 16:40, there were fewer participants in the protest campaign on Pionerskaya Square than the security forces. According to the Petersburg headquarters of Navalny, it was here at 17 o’clock that it was decided to put the final point of the action and complete the procession.

PS

According to the OVD-Info, 1097 people were detained in St. Petersburg. There was no official data at the time of preparation of the material.

And what about Moscow?

Capture objects are subjects of freedom. The report of our specialists from Moscow streets, along which protesters led riot police

January 31 in Moscow. What did the correspondents of "New": only photos