It’s simply astonishing, almost unbelievable, how everything repeats itself. It feels as if there is some Kremlin Safe containing a master manual for every possible situation, and whoever sits in the red tower opens that manual whenever the corresponding Signs appear.
During the discussion about where to hold the rally (downtown or not), I noticed several comments from people older than me: this happened exactly the same way before—in the late 1980s they wouldn’t let rallies take place in the city center and drove us out to Luzhniki.
So we went to check. And indeed, rallies were not allowed not only on Manezhnaya Square, but not even in Gorky Park. To keep protesters from getting into the park, they even made admission paid on that day—50 kopecks.
The rally has been canceled due to the upcoming Tea Day celebration! It’s like Sobyanin’s current “Jam Festival” (a Moscow city festival). Or compare it with the recent refusal by Moscow City Hall to allow a march on Sparrow Hills. Exactly the same.
And the phrase "democracy is all well and good, but we mustn’t let things slide into anarchy" is really just United Russia’s favorite line: "Democracy does not mean permissiveness".
After that, even “authorized” rallies were no longer allowed near the Central House of Artists, only at Luzhniki—which, by the standards of that time, was basically what Maryino is today:
The first rally in central Moscow was officially authorized only in February 1990. It became clear that the strategy of “pushing people out to the outskirts” did not work. And all those lines about "democracy not meaning anarchy" were historically doomed too, though who could have imagined that back in 1988?
Now the pendulum has swung back, and what we are seeing really is a renaissance of the Soviet party nomenklatura (the Soviet-era ruling bureaucracy). It is deeply bleak, but it is important to remember that historically they too are doomed.
The organizers of tomorrow’s rally, who went to City Hall yesterday “for a meeting,” gave an interesting account: there were about 30 people from “the brass” there, including various high-ranking police officials. Funny thing is, back then they were lieutenants and low-level city hall staffers; now they’re generals and senior officials, but they are doing exactly the same thing.
As old BG (Boris Grebenshchikov, the Russian rock musician) sang in a well-known song, "And the people who shot at our fathers are making plans for our children."
Come tomorrow. 5:00 p.m. Maryino. Bratislavskaya or Maryino metro station. No one but us will give us back our land.