A planned concert protesting the construction of a highway through a forest outside Moscow turned into an opposition rally on Sunday evening after authorities prohibited the use of sound equipment.
The concert, to protest the destruction of the centuries-old Khimki forest to clear space for a toll highway between Moscow and St. Petersburg, drew up to 3,000 people to downtown Moscow's Pushkinskaya Square on Sunday.
In what some saw as a heartening sign, local authorities "sanctioned" a star line-up including rock veteran Yuri Shevchuk of DDT and Televizor to perform, but changed their minds at the last minute, saying no sound equipment could be used, only megaphones, which were not easy to get hold of at such short notice.
Thousands of police, who cordoned off the square hours before the event, warned passers-by they had better go home or to the nearby McDonald's, saying there would be no concert anyway. Why bother standing in line for an hour to steal a sight of mute rockers?
And they were right, of course, there was no concert. What there was, though, was something far less to the taste of police than a rock concert - a political rally.
In a bid to snub the rally, the pro-Kremlin youth group Nashi (Ours), whose members turned out in their dozens, called on those present to go to the Khimki forest to take part in a late-summer clean-up event.
Shevchuk, who recently released a video in support of the cause, was greeted with claps and cheers as he got on an improvised stage near the brooding Pushkin statue and sang some of his best-known songs while accompanying himself on an acoustic guitar. The crowd and the police alike joined in on the classic "Rodina" (Motherland) and "Osen" (Autumn).
But the stage soon turned into a political podium as environmentalists and opposition leaders took the floor.
"They don't let us breathe, they don't let us talk! What else should we do to make them hear us?" shrilled Yevgeniya Chirikova, who spearheads the campaign to protect the Khimki forest, as the crowd chanted "Russia without Putin!" and "Freedom to political prisoners!"
"Stop paying attention to the vertical, bring back the horizontal!" Televizor leader Mikhail Borzykin called out.
"I am ready, are you ready to set cops' cars on fire?" the Moscow band Barto sang to a cheering crowd.
"We will be free, let the authorities steal, they can't steal our freedom," impresario Artemy Troitsky said, adding that the event was unprecedented because it had been "sanctioned." Most protests in Russia are broken up by police for being "unsanctioned."
Earlier on Sunday, three opposition leaders were detained in downtown Moscow for attempting to stage an "unsanctioned rally," police said. The men claimed they were simply celebrating Russia's National Flag Day.
"The flag is a symbol of freedom and democracy, but not for [Prime Minister Vladimir] Putin," said Solidarity movement leader Boris Nemtsov, who was among those detained. Also detained were Solidarity leader Mikhail Shneider and human rights advocate Lev Ponomaryov.
The Moscow authorities regularly turn down requests from the Russian opposition movements to hold rallies at Moscow's hallowed venues, including Triumfalnaya Square and Tverskaya Square. Triumfalnaya is the site of the Marches of Dissent rallies, held by the opposition on the last day of each month with 31 days, in defense of the right to freedom of assembly, as enshrined in Article 31 of the Russian Constitution.
The Moscow authorities now plan to close the square to construct a multi-storey underground car park, although the opposition claim this is just another bid to prevent protest.
A bike show was held on the square on July 31 but some 200 protesters turned out regardless, with 75 hauled away in police buses.
MOSCOW, August 23 (RIA Novosti, by Alexei Korolyov)
