There was a very curious experiment with “Anti-Maidan”. As I understand it, the idea was to try to gather at least some people who would come out “for the cause.” That was exactly why they started actively buying ads. As it turned out, the advertising was paid for from the state budget, but even that is better than the usual brainless bussing-in of public-sector employees and students.
Obviously, the experiment was deemed a failure: the Kremlin realized that an “ideological Anti-Maidan” would amount to two hundred bikers in exotic outfits, so the organizing shifted back to the familiar “Anti-Maidan in exchange for a day off.”
It’s a pity — it would have been interesting to see a pro-Putin rally without Russian Post employees shifting awkwardly from foot to foot (Marya Vitalyevna, can we go now?) and organized motorcades from nearby regions.
As for our “Spring” March, as you know, it provoked a fairly panicked reaction: in Moscow, 11 (!!) applications were filed for March 1, and in St. Petersburg, 8 applications.
All of this is being done to offer “Spring” the most humiliating possible routes on the outskirts of the cities. In Moscow they are proposing Maryino (because, you see, apparently there is not a single free street left in the entire city), and in St. Petersburg, Polyustrovsky Park. In some cities — Kaliningrad, for example — they are simply refusing permission altogether without offering an alternative route, which is completely illegal.
The calculation is fairly obvious: everyone indignantly refuses, then long and pointless negotiations begin, and in the end the exact location is only known a day in advance, leaving no time for preparation or outreach. Campaigners are chased off the streets (“you don’t have permission!”), and articles are planted everywhere saying “there will be no approval, everyone will be rounded up, and the leaders will abandon everyone,” and so on.
No radio spots, and no legal online advertising.
There is no single position within the “Spring” organizing committee yet; so far we have not even received a formal written response, and therefore we have no way to demand a different route. Once we receive it, we will go through the formal procedure for discussing route options.
I can give my personal opinion (for now I’m in the minority on the organizing committee): personally, I’m not bothered by Maryino, Otradnoye, Zhulebino, Novokosino, Tushino, or Vernadsky Avenue. The closer to ordinary people, the better.
Do people not live there or what? As a matter of fact, I myself have lived in that very Maryino for 17 years, and it’s been just fine.
So let’s hold the Anti-Crisis March right in the thick of where ordinary people live; after all, Maryino is Moscow’s most populous district. It will be a people’s march.
By the way, this time too I suggested holding it not on Tverskaya / Bolotnaya / Sakharov Avenue, but on Sparrow Hills or somewhere like that.
The position of “I’ll go speak out against war and corruption if it’s at Chekhovskaya metro station, but Maryino metro station — absolutely not” looks a bit strained. It’s obvious that the calculation here is that people will take such a route as an insult (and it is an insult) and let their emotions take over, but we need to understand that this is the plan.
We should be thinking not about how much a route like this infuriates us, but about how much slogans like ours infuriate them.
If we want to preserve the two advantages we were counting on — a) full official approval and b) time for outreach — then Maryino is acceptable too.
After all, many people hold rallies for their rights and dignity very far from Chekhovskaya metro station — in Yekaterinburg or Vladivostok.
But, I repeat, this is my personal opinion, not the position of the organizing committee. As for me, I’m always ready to take part in an unauthorized protest if it comes to that.
“Spring” is about timing and process, not place.