Protest day kicked off in Russia with rallies in the country’s Far East and Siberia, where thousands took to the streets in the punishing cold on Saturday.
The biggest public event east of the Ural mountains took place in Novosibirsk in western Siberia, where between 1,500 and 2,000 rallied to protest alleged violations at December’s parliamentary and upcoming presidential elections, police said.
In Irkutsk, the protest gathered between 250 and 300 protesters, according to early estimates. Participants marched through city streets but kept to the sidewalks so as not to disrupt traffic.
A rally in far eastern Khabarovsk, where temperature stood at minus 21 degrees Celsius, gathered some 250 people, regional news agency Vostok-Media said.
The ragtag crowd, which included representatives of the Communists and A Just Russia, supporters of presidential candidate Mikhail Prokhorov and even the banned National-Bolshevik Party, came to Vladimir Lenin’s monument in the eponymous square to demand fair elections.
The event was mostly peaceful, though a speaker for the nationalists was booed and a group of his supporters detained by police for a document check, reports said.
In another far eastern city, Vladivostok, between 100 and 250, by various estimates, marched through city streets before stopping for a round of protest speeches at the downtown Svetlanskaya Ulitsa.
Prominent speakers included two local lawmakers from the Communist party. Police said the organizers violated the agreement with authorities, which only sanctioned a “meeting with legislators,” not a political rally, however, no detentions were reported.
The Liberal Democratic Party held its own separate events in both cities, citing ideological disagreements with organizers. Each was attended by several dozens party supporters.
Small protest events also took place in Magadan.
Meanwhile, some 600, mostly officials, entrepreneurs and students, attended an indoors rally in support of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in Birobidzhan, the capital of the far eastern Jewish Autonomous Region, police said. A similar-themed event in Petropavlosk-Kamchatsky was attended by 300 participants, also according to police estimates.
