"Russian March" gets ugly

via drugoi, originally posted by zahard

It's the type of thing that could make a the last Russian liberal's head explode. Nazi-saluting morons getting beaten by cops while marching on the Arbat. Cops stomping on the Russian flag. Should one be outraged over the police brutality, or appalled at the sentiments expressed by the marchers (and the way in which the latter are presumed by hard-core Putin-haters to be fed by the patriotic bombast of Russia's current leaders)? What a dilemma. I applaud drugoi's solution, which was to go photograph the whole mess and then put the pictures online. This one was my favorite from his set:

[image source]

The guys slinging shawarma - who have, let's face it, a bit more to fear - were apparently more willing to face the crowds of developmentally challenged racists than were the guys in the Kremlin. Here is a fascinating photo-report from the area around Red Square, which was makes it look like the area was under total lockdown as the marchers took the Arbat on November 4th - which, lest we forget, is the Day of National Unity in Russia.

Perhaps the reason for the harsher-than-usual treatment of the marchers (in the past, xenophobic organizations have been allowed to march) was the political context of this year's march (from the Moscow Times):

Although the action had a strong racist element, the increasing problems spawned by the financial crisis gave the rhetoric an economic edge.

"These are not gastarbaitery," said Boris Ivanov, a DPNI member, referring to the thousands of men and women who come to Moscow from Central Asia and the Caucasus to work in markets and construction sites. "These are strikebreakers," he said.

"Life is already very hard for us, and they come and bring down pay rates and make it even harder," he said, while those around him vigorously nodded their heads. "They are useful for the Kremlin and the oligarchs, because they work for less."

City Hall had authorized marches in three of the past four years, but this year authorities reacted strongly to the illegal marchers by deploying hundreds of truncheon-wielding riot police.

The reason behind the unwillingness of the city's authorities to sanction the march could be fear that it would lead to riots in the street, especially given the people's worries about the looming financial crisis, said Alexei Mukhin of the Center for Political Technologies.

And more photos from Nov 4's festivities, from the blog of Kommersant journo Ekaterina Savina.