Kremlin shocked as Kaliningrad stages huge anti-government protest
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Pastor Dale Morgan
Feb 2, 2010, 11:18:05 AM2/2/10
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Perilous Times
Kremlin shocked as Kaliningrad stages huge anti-government protest
Special envoy sent to Russia's western enclave as thousands take to streets in biggest protest since Soviet Union fell
* Luke Harding in Moscow
* guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 2 February 2010 16.15 GMT
Dmitry Medvedev today sent his special envoy to the western outpost of Kaliningrad after thousands of Russians took to the streets in the largest rally since the fall of the Soviet Union.
The protest, staged at the weekend, saw between 10,000 and 12,000 people gather in Kaliningrad's main square.
The protesters demanded the resignation of the governor and shouted slogans against the ruling pro-government United Russia party.
There were similar, although smaller, opposition rallies in other towns, including Vladivostok – the scene of regular protests by car drivers over the past 18 months – as well as Moscow and St Petersburg.
Riot police violently broke up a peaceful demonstration in Triumfalnaya Square, Moscow, on Sunday, arresting 100 people.
Although opposition rallies have taken place throughout the Vladimir Putin era, the scale of the Kaliningrad protest appeared to have caught the Kremlin off guard.
The European region – the former German city of Königsberg, which was seized by Stalin during the second world war – is separated from the rest of Russia and bordered by EU member states Poland and Lithuania.
Medvedev sent his plenipotentiary envoy, Ilya Klebanov, to Kaliningrad to find out what happened.
Sources suggested that the Kremlin-appointed governor, Georgy Boos, was also likely to be summoned back to Moscow for a dressing down.
Solomon Ginzburg, an opposition leader and independent deputy, said a wide coalition of residents had taken part in the rally, including communists, liberals and ultra-nationalists.
Ginzburg said people were fed up with sharp increases in communal and transport charges and wanted Boos – appointed by Putin in 2005 – to resign.
"Unlike most Russians, we can compare living conditions here with those in Poland and Lithuania," he said. "Boos promised us the same standards as the EU. It turned out he was lying."
Saturday's rally was even bigger than the 1991 protests against an attempted putsch by KGB hardliners, he added.
United Russia was now planning a counter-rally, bussing in paid supporters from outside the city, he said, but added: "This won't convince anybody. We don't live in Turkmenistan but in Europe. And it's the 21st century."
Analysts said the Kremlin was unlikely to draw the conclusion from Kaliningrad that it needed to liberalise Russia's tightly-controlled political system.
Instead, they said, the authorities, fearful of social unrest spreading to other parts of the country, would move decisively to snuff out other mass rallies.
"The scale of this protest is too big not to react immediately. It's dangerous [for the Kremlin] if something similar is repeated elsewhere," Nikolai Petrov, a scholar at Moscow's Carnegie Centre and an expert on regional elites, said.
The government's commission in Kaliningrad would see what lessons had to be learned, he added.
Human rights groups today called on the authorities to stop blocking peaceful demonstrations, following the arrests in Moscow.
Those arrested at that demonstration included Oleg Orlov, the chairman of the Memorial Human Rights Centre, and Boris Nemtsov, the leader of the pro-democracy Solidarity opposition movement.
"Russian law clearly allows for freedom of assembly," Tanya Lokshina, the deputy director for Human Rights Watch in Moscow, said.
"But these arrests of human rights leaders and peaceful protesters are a prime example of how blatantly the authorities violate this right."
A letter published in today's New Times magazine, meanwhile, revealed widespread corruption and abuse of office by riot police in Moscow.
The letter, written by Moscow's OMON police battalion, revealed officers have quotas for the number of opposition demonstrators they are supposed to arrest, and have pay docked in they fail to fulfil it.
The letter also said OMON police were told by officers that foreign intelligence agencies funded and demonstrated at anti-government rallies such as protest marches, as well as neo-Nazi demonstrations, and gay pride parades.
Kremlin shocked as Kaliningrad stages huge anti-government protest
Special envoy sent to Russia's western enclave as thousands take to streets in biggest protest since Soviet Union fell
* Luke Harding in Moscow
* guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 2 February 2010 16.15 GMT
Dmitry Medvedev today sent his special envoy to the western outpost of Kaliningrad after thousands of Russians took to the streets in the largest rally since the fall of the Soviet Union.
The protest, staged at the weekend, saw between 10,000 and 12,000 people gather in Kaliningrad's main square.
The protesters demanded the resignation of the governor and shouted slogans against the ruling pro-government United Russia party.
There were similar, although smaller, opposition rallies in other towns, including Vladivostok – the scene of regular protests by car drivers over the past 18 months – as well as Moscow and St Petersburg.
Riot police violently broke up a peaceful demonstration in Triumfalnaya Square, Moscow, on Sunday, arresting 100 people.
Although opposition rallies have taken place throughout the Vladimir Putin era, the scale of the Kaliningrad protest appeared to have caught the Kremlin off guard.
The European region – the former German city of Königsberg, which was seized by Stalin during the second world war – is separated from the rest of Russia and bordered by EU member states Poland and Lithuania.
Medvedev sent his plenipotentiary envoy, Ilya Klebanov, to Kaliningrad to find out what happened.
Sources suggested that the Kremlin-appointed governor, Georgy Boos, was also likely to be summoned back to Moscow for a dressing down.
Solomon Ginzburg, an opposition leader and independent deputy, said a wide coalition of residents had taken part in the rally, including communists, liberals and ultra-nationalists.
Ginzburg said people were fed up with sharp increases in communal and transport charges and wanted Boos – appointed by Putin in 2005 – to resign.
"Unlike most Russians, we can compare living conditions here with those in Poland and Lithuania," he said. "Boos promised us the same standards as the EU. It turned out he was lying."
Saturday's rally was even bigger than the 1991 protests against an attempted putsch by KGB hardliners, he added.
United Russia was now planning a counter-rally, bussing in paid supporters from outside the city, he said, but added: "This won't convince anybody. We don't live in Turkmenistan but in Europe. And it's the 21st century."
Analysts said the Kremlin was unlikely to draw the conclusion from Kaliningrad that it needed to liberalise Russia's tightly-controlled political system.
Instead, they said, the authorities, fearful of social unrest spreading to other parts of the country, would move decisively to snuff out other mass rallies.
"The scale of this protest is too big not to react immediately. It's dangerous [for the Kremlin] if something similar is repeated elsewhere," Nikolai Petrov, a scholar at Moscow's Carnegie Centre and an expert on regional elites, said.
The government's commission in Kaliningrad would see what lessons had to be learned, he added.
Human rights groups today called on the authorities to stop blocking peaceful demonstrations, following the arrests in Moscow.
Those arrested at that demonstration included Oleg Orlov, the chairman of the Memorial Human Rights Centre, and Boris Nemtsov, the leader of the pro-democracy Solidarity opposition movement.
"Russian law clearly allows for freedom of assembly," Tanya Lokshina, the deputy director for Human Rights Watch in Moscow, said.
"But these arrests of human rights leaders and peaceful protesters are a prime example of how blatantly the authorities violate this right."
A letter published in today's New Times magazine, meanwhile, revealed widespread corruption and abuse of office by riot police in Moscow.
The letter, written by Moscow's OMON police battalion, revealed officers have quotas for the number of opposition demonstrators they are supposed to arrest, and have pay docked in they fail to fulfil it.
The letter also said OMON police were told by officers that foreign intelligence agencies funded and demonstrated at anti-government rallies such as protest marches, as well as neo-Nazi demonstrations, and gay pride parades.
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