As I sit in the Tverskoy District Court and await 30 days in jail, I’m reading the city administration’s response to our notice about the September 9 rally—a document of truly unprecedented beauty and absurdity.
I’m publishing it in full below so you can see it for yourselves.
The city administration informs us that, “according to the information available to them,” some kind of “direct action” is being planned to “replace campaign materials.”
What? Or, as people used to say online in Russian, “SHTOA?”
What is this even about? What “direct action”? What “campaign materials”? What does any of this have to do with raising the retirement age and protesting against it?
But despite how strange and stupid it is, this response suits us perfectly. As you can see, it contains no statement that the rally has not been approved, nor does it propose an alternative location. Under the law, that means only one thing: the rally is approved. And if there is any “replacement of campaign materials,” then someone will be held accountable for that.
Let them. And on September 9, we are gathering in Pushkin Square to speak out against raising the retirement age.