Member of State Duma about Bolotnaya - this was a provocation!
Meanwhile, Belarusian participants of the events in Moscow draw parallels with the December 19, 2010 demonstration.
"We expected that Bolotnaya would be the "exhaust of protest". The most radical protesters were going to hold an action later, in the Manezhnaya Square [this is from the other side of the Kremlin - Euroradio]. However, they were not allowed even to gather. The Square was sealed by the police and they started the mop-up operation as soon as the first fifty people appeared there. When the rally to the Bolotnaya Square turned into the sitting on the bridge manifestation and then led to the mass clash with the police, it was totally unexpected for us", - participant of the Moscow events Hleb says.
The distance from the Bolotnaya Square to Kremlin is no longer than a kilometer, if you walk directly. However, the Moscow-River divides them. It is possible to get there by the Great stone bridge. The police blocked the demonstrants' Sunday break-through exactly at that spot. After that, the policemen detained 650 people in the area of the Bolotnaya Square.
Blue line— the route of the protesters from Kaluzhskaya (В) to Bolotnaya (А) Square. Red cross — the place of the first clash with the police. The majority of detentions took place near the cinema "Udarnik"
So, how did the fight start? Eye-witnesses' opinions divide. Some people say that the police tried to force those people who started the sitting strike away. The people in the uniform took several steps forward and the clash started. Others say there was a group of youngsters who dashed into the rows of policemen. The latter started taking protesters out of the crowd one by one after that.
"Obviously, it was a provocation. I think it was a planned action aimed at discrediting the protest movement. As for who planned this action - I would like to refrain from commenting on that", - member of the State Duma from the "Fair Russia" party Alexandr Chetverikov has told Euroradio.
The demonstration in Minsk on December 19, 2010 also started as a peaceful manifestation, went on with breaking windows in the House of Government and ended in brutal dispersal. However, in the opinion of Hleb who took part in both actions, the protesters in the Belarusian and the Russian capitals acted absolutely differently:
"When people in Minsk tried to step back peacefully, and the police pressed and beaten them, then here there was a clash, provoked, as n Belarus, by some unknown force. The people fought with the flags' holders, threw pieces of asphalt and fireworks at the policemen. However, the policemen threw the asphalt back at the protesters", Hleb compares.
There is also a difference between how the leaders of the protesters were punished. In Belarus, Mikalaj Statkevich, Andrei Sannikau and Dzmitry Us got 16,5 years of imprisonment in total. Boris Nemtsov, Sergei Udaltsov and Aleksei Navalnyi got 30 dollars of fine each.
Meanwhile, the protest moods in Moscow do not go down. Separate actions are taking place all over the city center. Detentions also go on. Detention centers and courts are overcrowded, the police do not even have enough vehicles. They transport the detainees in the fixed route mini-buses!
"We should blame the authorities and only the authorities that the protest s getting violent, — TV-host Ksenia Sobchak writes in her blog. — If the authorities reacted to the demands of Bolotnaya in an adequate way, if there were at least any changes for the last three months, the protest would remain peaceful… t is not the people who get aggressive and angry with the authorities that are to be blamed for revolutions, but those who do not hear their demands."
In the opinion of Alexandr Chetverikov, who was invited to the inauguration, the atmosphere in which Vladimir Putin was officially declared Russia's President on May 7 was influenced by what is happening in Moscow streets.
"Just imagine - the country is entering a new political epoch. We have the new state leader, although he is actually the old state leader. We should feel euphoria. The wind of hopes, of changes, the expectation of something which we have been waiting for a long time, something good, new, bright, outstanding... There was nothing like this. A grey, dull event in accordance with the protocol... There was no feeling of a holiday. And this feeling should have been there for sure".
Photo: Ilya Yapishkin
