Siberia and the Far East: Navalny received the most support in Vladivostok and Irkutsk
In Russian cities of the Far East and Siberia, unauthorized rallies were held in support of opposition blogger Alexei Navalny, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
They were the most radical in Vladivostok. There, young people (their number is estimated to range from one thousand to three) gathered in the central square. After standing there for about an hour, they moved along Svetlanovskaya Street. The police blocked their road. Several clashes occurred. The Maidan protesters behaved aggressively and attacked the police.
By a “strange” coincidence, liberal blogger Yuri Dud found himself in Vladivostok, the hottest point of the protests in the morning. He actively took pictures with Maidan protesters.
Observers report that, unlike the summer protests in Khabarovsk, only young people came out to protest in Vladivostok. There were many minors who had little understanding of what was happening.
Meanwhile, in Khabarovsk itself, Navalny’s call did not lead to a noticeable surge in fading protests in support of the former governor of the region, Sergei Furgal, who is in a pre-trial detention center. Several hundred people gathered at Lenin Square (a traditional protest site). The police behaved correctly, however, when the protesters moved in a procession towards the Amur, arrests occurred.
The largest rally took place in Irkutsk, where Navalny was supported the day before by former communist governor Sergei Levchenko, whose son was arrested several months ago on corruption charges. Several thousand people came out there (from 2 to 5 thousand according to various estimates). The crowd walked along Uritsky Street to the regional government building. Protesters were seen carrying red and white Belarusian nationalist flags.
Rallies and marches took place in other cities, but were not as numerous. In Ulan-Ud they held a protest round dance. In Chita they held a rally to the song “We want all records.” There and in Krasnoyarsk, polite police walked among the protesters and convinced the teenagers to leave.
Yakutsk deserves special mention, where several dozen people and police came out despite the 50-degree frost.
“The first conclusion from the rallies in support of Navalny in the Far East: real boys will not rise up for Lesha. The level of opposition to the federal government in the Far East is higher than in the central or western regions of Russia, but this does not mean that they will support any oppositionist. Plus, of course, semi-criminal freethinking differs from the well-fed, major Moscow one. And Lesha is a foreign Muscovite for them. For them, theirs is Darkin or Furgal and other lesser authorities,” wrote political scientist Marat Bashirov.
“Day N. “Rehearsal.” In the Far East and Irkutsk, a particularly large number of protesters is not yet visible. All this is within the usual limits of opposition activity at the beginning of the year. And the backbone of the “crowd” is familiar - antifa, anarchists and right-wingers,” comments political scientist Maxim Zharov.
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