MOSCOW - From the manual ever written at the time of Putin opponents: 1) Keep up the sign and remain silent, almost motionless. 2) Smiling and let the police search without protest. Even if you are a woman. 3) The other must be at least forty feet away. Even in their silence and without banners. 4) To give oneself to change every ten minutes, fifteen minutes maximum, with a companion.But it quickly. Because if you keep the same sign in two protests, triggered the manifestation of crime and trouble. 5) Move away alone and without suspicious movements. So they already know who you are and where you go. They call it lonely picket line and go on stage every morning in front of number 13 of Tverskaya, the city hall, just below the equestrian statue of Yuri Dolgoruky, the mythical founder of Moscow.
Twenty protesters, at least forty officers in uniform and a pair of old anonymous ziguly overloaded with muscular-looking bad guys. They are the agents of the dreaded "E department" that supposedly involved in the hunt for extremists who are famous for their ability to cause batons and then justify raids.
The yellow sign with a red calls for "Liberate the opponents" and refers to the group led by Boris Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister at the time of Yeltsin and now leader of the liberal movement, and sworn enemy of the Russian government. They ended up in jail the evening of the last year.
Something must have worked in the usual rules: a banner held too long, an instinctive reaction to the close of an agent. Arrest and silence. Two words in the news, nothing in the newspapers that traditionally post-Soviet era remain closed for New Year's Eve to over the weekend following the January 7, Orthodox Christmas Day.
Black out the official with a few exceptions: the homily the Patriarch Kirill, the presence at the Christmas Mass of President Medvedev and his wife. Normal so that passers-by on the snow Tverskaya understand little of what happens under the statue of Dolgoruky. All around the shop windows of Moscow's richest, signboards of restaurants and cafes, huge video billboards with advertisements will continue to lingerie and luxury cars.
Nothing conjures up the dark days of repression of the past. "And indeed it is not the same thing. Certainly the situation is less dangerous but in fact it is more difficult." Denis Bilunov, 41, computer engineer, has just finished his shift at the banner and warms up with a coffee in a bar overlooking the street: "See those cops? They are not all bad.
Indeed there are many who have not no desire to haunt us. Someone even tried to warn those of E. This department at the time of communism was not even imaginable. But it is not always an advantage. Things are more ambiguous sticky. " Putin era, in fact, show is absolutely legal, reporting errors and crimes of men in power is even commendable as it once ran to tell the President Medvedev.
The dissidents are not likely to end up in a gulag or to disappear into thin air. Nemtsov himself out of jail on 15 days ago, will pay his fine of a few hundred euro, and will return to writing his books on the complaint and manage its movement Solidarnost meaning that is clearly inspired Solidarity and the Polish Solidarity movement of Lech Walesa.
"But the attrition is continuous. Planned in a scientific way - explains Bilunov - There's always an excuse, but ridiculous legally challenged, to deny permission to a demonstration, to scare the more sensitive or less brave. Or to stop those Khodorkovsky would be really dangerous as rich and famous intelligent.
He must of course keep it inside. " Yet the fragile Russian opposition movement continues to grow inexorably. Who do not fear the government, but growing. Especially when at the end of endless internal debates held in the street "where it is certain that no one intercepts" has decided to join forces in totally opposite sides.
And for a while 'time of the events of 31 months that remind you of Article 31 of the Constitution ("Freedom of assembly for all citizens) see more and more participants in all cities including the Far East. The uneasy alliance sees the so-called liberal Nemtsov, the former chess champion Kasparov and the leader of the defense of human rights Aleksa, together with greater force because of the All-Russian nationalist, xenophobic and reactionary, and the Bolsheviks themselves, supporters of return to socialism.
"It seems absurd but there is no other way to break this glass ceiling," said Nastya, 39, red scarf and brooch on the hammer and sickle. "We do not have the same ideas but we all agree that the USSR was the guiding thought, for better or worse, sent the interest of the State. Here, however, dominated by personal and clan interests only." The ideological differences are also confused when you consider that Eduard Limonov, leader of the Bolsheviks, has a past and a present from the USSR dissident writer and intellectual bohemian poorly suited to the symbols of his movement.
The union, however, brought some good results. The campaign in the universities, the workplace is recruiting new members at least among young people. The aim is to urge reform, space in the papers that are all controlled by people close to the government with very few exceptions. Jurii, 25, a student, the number 31 painted on the jacket, has clear ideas and goals minimum: "We have no alternative to government and better so we are seen as divided.
We just have to force the government to listen and let us speak publicly. A small to begin with perestroika. Democracy will come by itself. " And despite the arrests Yuri is convinced that something has changed. "There, we've entered. Perhaps we have also hidden microphones in the house.
But before we were boycotted. We will never pass an exam or finding work. Now some highlights from dictatorial rule are loosening. This one, the leaders say, they their money in Western banks, do business with Europe and the U.S.. They can not overdo it and they know it. " Because the sore is still the same.
Opponents of today will be even luckier than their predecessors, but who would not enjoy the support of the democratic world. Engineer Bilunov is bitter: "It's hard to know that the funds for the contribution to the democratization of Russia allocated by the U.S. government are paid only with the permission of the Kremlin.
Rogne and Washington does not want it just so happens that the money runs out to charities of wives of governors, or those sporting a few oligarchs. But maybe it's better that way, that money would affect us. " Then puts the cup back on the road. The yellow and red, it's his turn again.
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