A Turbulent Country

A concert/protest against the media's deceitful information policy in Novopushkinsky Square in Moscow.

Confrontation between Novokhopersk residents and a mining company.

"The Skunk Must Go!": Political demostration in Druzhnaya Gorka in the Gatchina Municipal District against the operation of an illegal oil refinery.

"Only ten people were allowed." A picket near the Turkish Embassy in memory of the Armenian Genocide.

A political demostration by residents of the Mitino district in Moscow against the transfer of a land plot for development to the Vladislav Tretyak Foundation. Participants advocated for the preservation of public space.

On March 8, a rally in defense of women's rights was held in Moscow's Novopushkinsky Square, which was also attended by activists carrying LGBT flags. The police detained 17 people during the rally — mainly, as explained by the organizers of the event from the Yabloko party, “anarcho-feminists” who were distributing the newspaper "Volya". Orthodox activists led by Dmitry "Enteo" Tsorionov also attended the rally, provoking detentions and chanting the slogan “Yabloko is a party of Satanists and perverts".

Oksana Ryzhkova, mother of a large family who accuses the government of Tatarstan of depriving her family of housing, stages a hunger strike and protest outside the Tatarstan representative office on Kotelnicheskaya Embankment in Moscow. She appeals to Gérard Depardieu, who had recently received Russian citizenship: “Give up your gifted apartments — there is no social housing fund in Russia.”

Residents of a dormitory on Ilyushina Street 15 in St. Petersburg, participating in a hunger strike in protest against their eviction, clashed with a man who tore down a banner from the building. When caught by the residents, the man identified himself as Dmitry Zakharov, chief engineer of Housing Maintenance Service No. 1. Zakharov claimed he removed the banner because it was “hanging on a residential building” and said he had no knowledge of the protest. A hunger strike was held at the dormitory at 15 Ilyushina Street in protest against the eviction of residents.

Sergey Udaltsov, who had been placed under house arrest, celebrated his birthday at home on February 16. His supporters gathered under the opposition figure's windows to shout out their congratulations. The police were displeased and dispersed the impromptu gathering of Udaltsov's supporters: “I have to inform you that this protest action is not authorized,” said a police officer. “What action?” asked the supporters in the courtyard. “Udaltsov's birthday.” “But, excuse me, he was born on this day!” they reply. The supporters then release balloons up towards the politician's window. “We are not 'cops', we are police officers, for your information!” the officers remark. Then the arrests begin.

On February 13, 2013, an action called “The Funeral of Russian Education” took place outside the Ministry of Education building in Moscow, where participants laid flowers at the entrance of the institution. The authorities stated that the event had not been approved, and police were dispatched to the site. Officers detained three participants, citing the lack of official authorization. During the detentions, protesters repeatedly asked, “Why are you detaining me?”— highlighting the legal uncertainty surrounding such public actions. The footage showed that the protest was peaceful, with no aggression, and that participants were simply expressing dissatisfaction with the state of the education system. The event was symbolic in nature, aimed at criticizing ongoing reforms and government policy in the sphere of education.

At the memorial service for Aleksandr Dolmatov, an opposition activist who died abroad, a fight broke out between National Bolsheviks and Sergey Udaltsov. Udaltsov was leaving the Sakharov Center and speaking to journalists when one of the National Bolsheviks struck him, shouting, “Stop using this for PR!” The police immediately detained two members of “The Other Russia,” one of whom may have been the attacker. Udaltsov said he did not intend to press charges, calling the inicdent "an act beyond good and evil". This event was yet another episode of tension within the opposition movement following Dolmatov’s death, after he took his own life in a deportation center in the Netherlands.

NTV journalists attempted to film a search being conducted in the apartment of Vladimir Ashurkov, the director of Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation. According to the Investigative Committee, the search was part of an inquiry into the possible embezzlement of funds from the Union of Right Forces party. The film crew knew only the building number and had a photograph of Ashurkov, but they did not know the exact apartment address. In the end, the journalists were unable to verify where the search was actually taking place and limited themselves to filming the entrance and questioning neighbors.