A Spark of Revolution in Russia That Didn’t Catch-
I
remember my last election living in Moscow.
It was for the Russian State Duma (parliament) and it took place in
December 2011. This was an interesting time
in Russia. Despite strong oil prices, the
economy was slowing down under the immense (and growing) weight of state corruption
and opposition to the Kremlin was rising, though it was still not considered
any real threat.
On
Monday, the day after the election, we waited for the results, but none came. This was strange. At 8pm, I left the office and went home. On Tuesday morning day, I discovered that the
authorities released the results about an hour after I left the office the
night before and they were so doctored to keep the ruling party in total control
that a spontaneous protest had erupted and a leading opposition leader had been
arrested (among many others). I was
flabbergasted and proud. A spontaneous protest
in Putin’s Russia? People demanding
their democracy? This was unheard of and
frankly, I didn’t think the Russians had it in them.
“Did
anyone see the news about a protest at Chiste Prudy last night? Navalny was arrested?!” I said to the office as I arrived. Everyone said they heard about and saw it on
the news.
“Please
do me a favor. Anytime you see or hear
of anything like this, send me a text to let me know. I was at home doing nothing and I would’ve
loved to go see what was happening. I
cannot believe that people actually protested!”
“Ok
Mike, we will tell you.” My colleagues
said in a lackluster and uninspiring tone.
It seemed like I was the only one who cared about the whole thing.
That
afternoon, our head of research said another unauthorized protest was being
called to take place at Mayakovskaya Square at 6pm. Mayakovskaya was right around the corner and
down the block from the office. I
couldn’t believe another protest was happening.
This really was unheard of under Putinism.
“Hey,
I’m going to check out the protest out at six- if anyone wants to leave work
early [we usually worked to 7pm], please join me. If all of us want to go, we can call it a
team building event and close the office early,” I offered to silence. No one was interested. They would rather work than go support a civic
action. I then emailed everyone I knew
to see if anyone wanted to join me. I
only received one response from an American guy named Lewis who said that he
had his bowling league that night, but would be happy to swing by the protest
for an hour beforehand. We agreed to
meet at my office and walk up together.
When
Lewis arrived, I again asked the team if anyone wanted to come along. Crickets. We headed out.
When we turned onto the main street (think Michigan Ave in Chicago or 5th
Ave in NYC), the street was like a military zone. No one was walking on sidewalks that would
usually be packed with the rush hour commute.
The street itself had no cars on it and was lined with personnel
carriers and other military vehicles.
There was a strange and ominous quiet in downtown Moscow that night. “This isn’t normal, let’s walk up and see if
anyone’s there.” I said to Lewis. He didn’t say a word.
We
walked up the street and when we got to Mayakovskaya we hit a line of policemen
who curtly told us to turn around and leave.
As we turned around and started walking back, we saw something
amazing. People were literally pouring
out of all the crevices, doorways and side streets and the whole sidewalk was
filling up with a massive crowd.
“I don’t
like the look of this,” Lewis said.
“Well, let’s
give it ten minutes to see what happens.”
I told him.
I turned
back toward the police and could see that they were preparing for
something. “It looks like the police
are…” I said turning back to Lewis only
to find that he had retreated into the crowd without saying a word. I couldn’t blame him. It felt dangerous and the police were out in full
riot gear. I told myself to stay for 10-15
minutes just to get a feel for what was happening.
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| Sidewalk filling up |
Then, everyone
at the front line started screaming. The
police were moving in. They started
violently pushing a cordon into the middle of the crowd and arresting people. That’s when I realized that we walked up right
after this type of action had cleared out the space momentarily. The same thing was happening again. Within a few minutes the protesters
scattered, the police retreated with a couple of handfuls of protesters, and I
was left standing there in shock.
During
this “low tide,” I moved next to a building near the front and pulled out my iPhone
and started recording and taking photos. I wanted a record to show the U.S. consulate
just in case I got arrested. As before,
after a few minutes, the protesters regrouped and the sidewalk filled up. Then, the police pushed in again and dragged people
away. The crowd screamed, pushed and
dispersed. This was the cycle and it happened
over and over throughout the night. I
was right in the thick of it all and it was as exhilarating as it was nerve
racking. I didn’t freak because it was
clear that the police realized I was a foreigner and were ignoring me. I stayed for the next four hours and saw
countless people get violently arrested despite doing nothing except standing
in peaceful protest for fair elections. There
were many chants, but “Russia without Putin!”, “Putin is a thief!”, and
“Shame!” were the most popular. It was
exciting to behold so many people voicing their opposition in front of the
cops.
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| Trombone Player in the Window |
Above: One of the videos
At one
point, as the police backed off and the crowd swelled again, someone in the
apartment right above me opened the window and started playing a trombone and
the crowd went nuts. The music had a
rallying affect on us. It cut through the
sense of impending doom. For the first
time in a long time I was so proud of Russia and the Russians. No matter how many of the protesters the
police beat and arrested, they weren’t going anywhere. They were taking a stand against a president
that was undermining all of liberties that Yeltsin had somehow managed to give
them. By the end of the night, I must’ve
seen over 500 protesters arrested.
Once it ended,
I walked around the square a bit. It was
clearly over, so I hopped a cab to a club called Chesterfield’s on Novy Arbat. I felt energized from the extended adrenaline
rush and wanted a drink to digest what I just witnessed.
The next
day the authorities reported the official protest size at less than 500. “That’s impossible!” I told my office. “I saw at least that number of people get
arrested and the square was still packed.” I always suspected that giving liberty to a
society would be a hell of a lot easier than taking it away and thought this
theory may finally be proven right.
The
opposition called for another mass protest for the coming Saturday at Bolotnaya
Square. Putin’s government had never
seen anything like this before and they shifted into crisis mode. The following day the government updated its official
statistics and reported that around 550 people were arrested at the protest I was
at. They then sanctioned the Bolotnaya protest
to make it “official”. This was taken as
a victory by the opposition, but it was also a shrewd calculation on the
Kremlin’s part. They were betting that the
protesters just needed to blow off steam and with winter right around the
corner, the movement would die out once the blizzards came and temperatures
dropped below zero.
They
were right, but it took some time. At
one rally a few weeks later, there were over 100,000 people in minus 20 degrees
standing around for hours. Nemtsov,
Navalny and other opposition leaders made speeches at all the rallies, but no
one pushed for any concrete actions, the election results didn’t change and,
over time, the people gave up.
Once the
protests died down, opposition leaders started getting arrested on trumped up charges. Then, over more time, the economy continued
faltering, Ukraine had its own revolution, Crimea was stolen and the Russian
army invaded eastern Ukraine. It was all a real
disaster. I closed down or sold
everything I had in Russia and headed stateside. A few months after I had left, Nemtsov, one
of the main opposition leaders and a former Deputy Prime Minister of Russia
under Yeltsin was shot in the back multiple times right in front of the Kremlin
one night. All the security cameras in
that area were turned off and the police that maintained a constant presence in
that exact spot for my entire time in Moscow were no where to be found when the
murder occurred. The crime is still
unsolved today. Pretty much all
opposition gave up after that. And now Russia
has even more flagrant election violations, the economy is a mess, and no one
says a word.
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| About a week after the protest I was reading a magazine called "Power" which is basically like Time/Newsweek and surprisingly came across this photo of the protest. I'm up in front on the right with my phone out. |
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If you
liked this blog, you may like one of these from the archive too-)
On Russia:
On
Ukraine’s ongoing Revolution of Dignity:
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