About 4,000 protesters braved biting cold to hold an unauthorised rally at a huge Lenin monument in Arkhangelsk’s main square, chanting: “Down with this useless state power” and “Down with United Russia”.
“We do not believe the authorities” and “We demand a pay rise,” read some of the posters. Red hammer-and-sickle Communist Party flags dominated the scene.
The large rally was similar to recent protests held in Vladivostok in Russia’s far east and in Kaliningrad in the west. Demands by protesters across Russia vary from lower household bills to the abolition of transport taxes, lower imported car duties and demands to halt a paper mill at the pristine Lake Baikal.
Last Saturday, the opposition held around 50 rallies on a national “Day of Anger”. Kremlin critics plan to hold a new series of protests on March 31 and May 1.
“Putin and Medvedev, along with all deputies and bureaucrats and governors, must be sacked, because they have deprived us of everything, because we cannot afford paying for municipal services,” pensioner Nina Kozhukhova, aged 70, told Reuters.
At a past rally, she was knocked down by riot police and hurled into a police van. But Kozhukhova was determined to fight. “That’s the limit, we are fed up with this lawlessness,” she said. “I do not believe United Russia because they have plundered us and gave all we had to corrupt bureaucrats.”
