New York City Rallies in Solidarity With Russian Protesters

also St. Petersburg, Geneva, Washington.

 

Saturday, December 10 in New York City will be remembered as the day when Russians made their voices heard. At least 300 people showed up to the Russian Consulate to protest in support of fair elections. It was the largest Russian rally in the city’s history. IMR’s Olga Khvostunova joined the protesters and offers this report.

 

 

Policemen from the 23rd precinct were nervous: they must have never seen so many Russians gathered together. When I got to the Russian Consulate at East 91st Street at noon, there were already more than a hundred people holding colorful signs, white flowers and white balloons, chanting “Fair elections for Russia!”, “Putin is a Thief!”, and “Russia without Putin!” Police officers didn’t know what to expect of the Russian crowd and tried to keep protesters, who occupied the entrance to the Consulate, behind metal barriers that to me looked exactly like the ones you see in the Moscow subway during rush hour.

And rush hour it effectively was, as people of all ages, occupations and social backgrounds kept arriving. Everyone was a Russian speaker and everyone was—it is hard to believe—smiling. The fact that Saturday’s peaceful and successful rally in Moscow was the largest protest of the last 20 years, was already in the news. Despite a penetrating December chill, protesters warmed up with their coffee and their optimism. The air was tinged with the joy of togetherness and hope.

In the middle of the crowd stood Natalia Pelevine of the Committee for Democratic Russia, an outspoken activist and long time organizer of NYC protests. This protest, too, was organized by Natalia Pelevine, together with Xenia Grubstein, a New York-based Russian journalist. Pelevine’s energy inspired people surrounding her to repeat and chant her slogans: “Fair vote for Russia!” and “Putin, resign!”

At some point Pavel Khodorkovsky, Institute of Modern Russia president, read a message from his father, the Russian political prisoner Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who had called him that morning from jail. The crowd cheered and started chanting again, “Free political prisoners!”

Funny slogans, too, materialized on the spot. For instance, when two locals passed by carrying a large Christmas tree, people started chanting “New Year without Putin!”, and then “Putin, skis, Magadan!”

Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the road behind police barricades, more people gathered, holding up signs, tri-color Russian flags and, surprisingly, also a green flag of Adygea (a small southwestern republic in the Russian Federation). As it turned out, a couple of the republic’s natives also joined the protest.

In the back of the crowd, someone was playing guitar, singing Viktor Tsoi’s Peremen (“Change”), which only increased the feeling of celebration. And there was good reason: Russian civil society seemed to have finally "woken up," as one of the signs suggested.

Ironically—the rally taking place on a Saturday morning, the Consulate being shut and with no personnel inside—the protesters' chants and calls were, quite literally, addressed to the walls of an empty building.

Nonetheless, luck was on the protesters’ side: at the end of the rally, a lonely figure stopped at the corner of 91st and Madison, stunned. It was Andrei Yushmanov, Russia’s Consul General in New York,  who was taking a walk from the Russian Orthodox church, situated nearby, where he spent his morning. Protesters, busy with chanting, didn’t see him, so Snob’s correspondent Ksenia Semenova and I walked up to the Consul general, to ask for an official comment, but he refused. In a friendly manner though, he remarked  that he was quite surprised by the number of protesters but didn’t support their demands, since he felt the parliamentary elections were clean, and any mistakes made were within the margin of error. Still, it was evident that Mr. Yushmanov heard the message sent by his fellow compatriots here in New York.

Hopefully, the message will be also heard by the authorities in Russia.

St. Petersburg Protests: The New Decembrists?

also New York City, Geneva, Washington.

 

On December 10, 2011 concerned Russian citizens took part in numerous protests around the world. The Institute of Modern Russia asked a well-known St. Petersburg journalist Dmitry Simanovsky to report back on the protests and protesters in his city.

 

 

St. Petersburg, the city of three revolutions and hometown to the current Russian political establishment’s main players, has long ceased to be the center of civil political activity in the country. However, this Saturday, December 10th, the day of mass protests against the rigging of the Russian elections, things seem to have changed a bit.

Until the late night of December 9th, the status of the upcoming protests was unclear, and their legality was no less murky -- such gatherings have to be approved by a special Russian authority. Several unsanctioned meetings planned by different political parties would have fragmented the protests, and many citizens felt they were losing the rare chance to express their rage against the rigged elections and against the authorities in general.

Not until 6:30 p.m. on Friday did Olga Kurnosova, the coordinator of Garry Kasparov's organization United Civil Front which has been keeping protest culture alive, file a petition for the event. She got it approved in less than an hour (even though, legally, such petitions should be filed at least three days in advance). There were a number of reasons for [granting the permit] with such an unusual efficiency: all of Petersburg’s police stations were already packed with about 500 protesters arrested during of the week of actions at Gostiny Dvor, and authorities checking their prison capacities against rising civil activity made the only decision they had left. Moreover, the gatherings of several thousand protestors which had already been approved in Moscow were a clear signal: the Kremlin didn't want to allow any new martyrs to arise from this movement.

It all started in St. Petersburg’s Ploschad' Vosstaniya (the Uprising Square); UCF’s original call was to meet there at 2:00 p.m. The Square has practically no space to accommodate protest, so it was probably chosen to start the day of action for its symbolic name, one that works well withPloschad' Revoljutsii (Revolution Square) in Moscow, the site of Moscow’s initial 300-person protest (though the event was then relocated toBolotnaya or the Swamp Square, its name later being promoted all over Facebook and Twitter).

Upon exiting the Petersburg metro station, police officers informed people wearing white ribbons about the approved meeting on Pionerskaya and advised them to proceed in an orderly manner. Drivers, upon seeing the masses of people walking along Nevsky Prospect, honked to signal their support. Later that night, it was announced that 7 people were arrested on the way to Pionerskaya for waving black flags and yelling nationalist slogans.

My friend and I walked along Nevsky Prospect to the Kazansky Cathedral, the place where Yabloko told supporters to meet. Within a few minutes, we ran out of the dozens of white ribbons we had prepared. People kept approaching us with the same questions: “What's going on at Vosstaniyaand Pionerskaya?” and “Do you have any spare ribbons?”

Near Kazansky, several dozen Yabloko supporters passed out white flowers and proceeded to Pionerskaya. By 3:00 p.m., Pionerskaya held about seven to ten thousand people, thereby beating a ten-year record of mass protests in St. Petersburg. The square was cordoned off by some of the most inoffensive looking riot policemen I have ever seen, and the mild manners and tolerance they displayed was totally unexpected coming from the Russian police. All kinds of banners flew over the crowd, featuring the whole spectrum of Russian opposition slogans, from the ultra-left to the ultra-right,   although most of the people there didn't belong to or even sympathize with any of these parties.

The majority of speeches talked about annulling the election results, freeing all political prisoners, legalizing and admitting all the oppositional parties to the elections, dismissing the head of the Central Electoral Commission Vladimir Churov who permitted all the rigging, and called for new free and fair elections. One of the speakers reminded that United Russia got the highest number of votes in Chechnya, and proposed that Putin, Medvedev and Churov were attempting to continue their political careers under the patrimony of Ramzan Kadyrov, since they are most respected in his region.

A representative of the Left Front party rhetorically asked the crowd how many of them had come heeding Hillary Clinton’s call. This was a response to the fact that Governor Georgy Poltavchenko, Putin’s henchman in St. Petersburg, claimed that the protests were a "provocation meticulously planned abroad." Such rhetoric is often used by Putin and his people, but to mention it right before an event drawing thousands of people from very different political backgrounds was a crude mistake.

A small but well organized group of ultra-right wingers in the center of the square attempted to disrupt every speech, using phrases like "Russia for Russians!" to question the ethnic background of each speaker. Although it irritated most of the attendees, this didn't result in any violent scuffles, instead leading the crowd to express support for the speaker.

The representative of the Liberal Democratic Party (nationalist and pro-Putin) claimed to be a member of the opposition but was booed by the crowd and never even got to start their speech. Maxim Reznik ,the St. Petersburg Yabloko leader, was also denied the right to speak -- presumably for having called his supporters to attend a separate meeting. The most prominent figures to speak were the Muscovites Victor Shenderovich and Artemy Troitskiy. The latter called upon popular musicians, artists and other artistic figures to speak up and join people in this struggle for rights. Unlike in Moscow, people listened to most of the speakers attentively, eagerly repeating slogans and catchphrases: "Putin and Churov are thieves," "Your election is a farce!", "We are not opposition – we're The People," "They fear us," "Russia will be free" and "Free Navalny!"

I heard a lady standing next to me say to her companion: "I have never seen so many decent people come together."

Others argued about whether such an event could influence the current situation:

"In the 1990s they had tens of thousands of people on the streets and it never helped!”
“Don’t you remember?! They never won that fight."
“This time it's different though! I have a feeling we're winning. We’re, like, the new Decembrists!”

The crowds approved the ultimatum (see the above-mentioned Five Demands List) given to authorities, who were then given 8 days to comply. That is, until the next meeting planned for December 18.

Geneva Stands in Solidarity With the Rally on Bolotnaya Square

also New York City, St. Petersburg, Washington.

 

On Saturday, December 10, in solidarity with protesters in Moscow, a rally against the fraudulent Russian parliamentary elections took place in front of Geneva’s Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations. About two hundred people came to show their support for fair elections in Russia.

 

 

The Geneva rally was organized by a Russian student Elena Tétaz and her Swiss husband, Jean-Marc Tétaz. The two created a Facebook group and got the Geneva police to sanction the protest. As it turned out, getting police approval was not an easy task. According to the organizers, on Thursday, December 8, the police gave a preliminary approval, only to turn it all around next morning, suddenly refusing a final authorization. According to some reports, the rejection was due to the negative reaction of the Russian Embassy in Bern. Finally, after lengthy negotiations, the event was authorized, though under rather unusual conditions. First, the protesters could not come within 80 meters of the Mission’s entrance. Additionally, only five women – and not all of the peaceful protesters – were allowed to lay white flowers by the Mission’s entrance.

Immigrants who left Russia during Soviet times were also among the two hundred protesters of the Geneva rally, proving that Russians deprived of his/her citizenship upon emigration from the USSR, are not indifferent to the fate of their „old country“.

The rally attracted the attention of the local media, including publications like the Swiss Russian-language site Nasha Gazeta and the regional newspaper Tribune de Genève, as well as the TV channel Télévision Suisse Romande.

Participants actively shared their opinions on currect events in Russia. Russian endocrinologist Elena Gulyaeva shared an account of how she went to a 1991 demonstration in Moscow with her then five-year-old daughter. Elena said, she wanted to show her daughter how the country’s history was created and shaped, despite the considerable risk of joining such a rally. Gulyaeva also complained that the changes over the last 20 years were now practically invisible, and that after the November 4th Duma election, she felt that "nothing had changed." At the same time, Gulyaeva is hopeful that with the help of social networking sites and first-hand accounts from protestors made available on the Internet, Russian society could come together again and begin to fight for its rights and freedoms.

Ilya Novikov, a student of Foreign Relations at the University of Geneva, agreed with Gulyaeva, stating that the revival of Russian civil society could become a major event in modern history.

Another speaker noted that the Russian government officials who "stole millions of votes at the elections on December 4, were the same people who wrapped barbed wire around the walls of the Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation. We want Russia to be democratic and open for the entire world, and to make sure our voices are not stolen. We stand for free elections and an open Russia!", he exclaimed.

During the hour and a half rally participants were in an elated mood, with people sticking around after the official part was over, to continue discussing election results and Russian politics at large. This is when protesters witnessed a minivan with security officers drive up to the entrance of the Permanent Mission, quickly collect all the flowers, and drive away, only a trace of petals left on the sidewalk.

Still, the feeling that Russians are willing to join together and defend their rights for fair elections and for free and independent media, remained.

Russians in Washington: "Vova! Stop Blaming Hilary, Act Like a Man!"

also New York City, St. Petersburg, Geneva.

 

On December 10, the world was shaken by a wave of international protest against the results of the Russian parliamentary elections. The main slogan of the 70-person-strong protest held by the Russian Embassy in Washington, D.C. was:“We are for fair elections!”

 

 

The two-hour protest in Washington, D.C. was initiated via the social networking site Facebook. More than 100 people confirmed their attendance during the mere three days of the online group’s existence. While the protest did not have a leader, this did not stop the group from acting like a cohesive unit.

Despite the presence of police officers there to ensure the security of the Russian Embassy, the protest was marked by a friendly atmosphere: participants talked to the police, who, in turn, willingly answered all questions and helped to coordinate the location of the rally. Many participants came with their families and children. One protester brought a guitar and sang Russian songs, including Change by Viktor Tsoi.

During the protest, participants got acquainted with one other and shared their reasons for coming to the rally. For example, Natalia, a Russian citizen who works as a model in the United States, said that it was her first time at a protest of any kind, and that her attendance had nothing to do with politics. There was no way she would miss this one because by attending the rally, she was expressing her disagreement with the results of the election. Moreover, Natalia said she personally heard of an instance of election fraud: her friend, who lives in Russia, was denied the right to vote because someone else voted using her name. A passport confirming her identity did not help convince the electoral commission that her voice had been stolen.

Another participant, Irina, a Russian citizen who currently lives in the United States, came to the rally to show her solidarity with protesters in Russia: "I am happy that Russians finally stood up to protect their rights and express their dissatisfaction with the government. I think we are witnessing a historic moment,” Irina said.

Some foreigners came to the rally to demonstrate their support. Susan, an American citizen, said she had closely followed the election results in Russia. By coming to the rally, she was speaking out for fair elections and for the protection of human rights in Russia.

Besides the white ribbons and white flowers, symbolizing the peaceful nature of the protest, most participants also brought posters and signs, some of which were drawn on the spot. The most popular slogan was "For Fair Elections in Russia," which, according to participants, demonstrated that they held an independent viewpoint and were not affiliated with any groups, governments or opposition parties.

One of the participants held a poster responding to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s statement that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had allegedly provoked the Russian protests: "Vova! Stop blaming Hillary, act like a man!" Some other posters that stood out included: "We are not voiceless," "We demand re-elections,""4% + 9% ≠ 49%” “Put-in, Put-out,” “Put-in someone new" and "No to revolution, yes to honest elections."

The protest ended at 4 pm, as scheduled. While leaving participants left white flowers and white ribbons alongside the Embassy’s fence. The police noted nothing but peaceful conduct, and the Embassy did not comment on the protest.