The crackdown escalated in leaps. By the authorities’ logic, the moment you show up at any opposition mass event, you lose all your civil rights. In that sense, the main signal was this: they would not admit a lawyer, even if he had the proper warrant in hand. Vadim Prokhorov, the chief “dissenters’ lawyer,” was not allowed into the Yakimanka police station, where I and several others had been detained for crossing the street in the wrong place. He stood outside for two hours. After we were released, Prokhorov and I tried to get into several other police stations and the Meshchansky Court, where Kasparov was being tried. We were let in nowhere. And that, by the way, is one of the most serious possible violations of criminal and administrative procedure. An interesting change in the tactics used against the “dissenters.” They are taking everyone’s mobile phones away. It’s obvious why: to make coordination harder. This is completely illegal. A phone can be confiscated from someone under arrest, or from someone who used it as an instrument of a crime. But you absolutely cannot take a phone from someone detained for crossing the street improperly (and really, you shouldn’t be detaining them for that in the first place). The operatives fed me some nonsense about “confiscating it under an inspection report.” I said I would not hand it over without an official seizure report and suggested they take the phone from me by force. The police huddled for a moment and left the phone alone. But five minutes later the head of the station came in to look at the “smart-ass know-it-all.” He invited me into his office. For about twenty minutes we sparred over who knew procedure better. Then he simply made me an offer that was hard to refuse: hand over the phone battery, or we’ll establish your identity the full way right now. Photos, fingerprints, the whole thing. Everything will be by the book, but it will take a very, very long time. I didn’t feel like sitting in the cop shop until one in the morning, so I handed over the battery. As a bonus, they let us sit not in the holding cell, but in the “red corner” (a Soviet-style room for political information and meetings). Under portraits of Putin and Nurgaliyev. They held us for five hours. Out of boredom, I took up some explanatory work with the police. Everyone below the rank of major plays dumb; everyone above it says that once they retire, they’ll go marching themselves. Gaidar and Yermolin gave the best speeches at the rally. Nemtsov was decent too, but he really shouldn’t have started singing. The absence of YABLOKO looked simply bizarre. Even more bizarre were the press releases saying that over the weekend Yabloko would hold a car rally “during which campaign platform leaflets will be handed out and conversations with voters held on the street.” Some National Bolshevik (member of the National Bolshevik Party) began his speech with a hysterical shout: “Hello, comrades! I don’t think there are any gentlemen here! All the gentlemen are in Paris!” It occurred to me that at that moment the Osoavtsov hippopotamus must have felt his heart tighten with a very bad premonition. He probably flinched, and liters of water spilled from the marble pool onto the marble floor. Yashin. Well, of course he shouldn’t have climbed onto the car. At the time it seemed reasonable to him: nobody knew what to do, the OMON riot police were pushing everyone back, and he honestly called on people to move away from the cordon. Now it’s clear he could have done that while standing on the asphalt. But no great tragedy actually happened. To read some of the commentary, you’d think Yashin had blown up a kindergarten. The man admitted his mistake, apologized, and will pay for the damage. In fact, this is the first incident of this kind in the entire history of opposition marches in recent years. I suggest we close the subject and stop demanding that Yashin walk through fire. Gozman. We should think about whether he can be considered to have “atoned for his guilt in blood.” Really, Gozman being beaten with truncheons alongside a group of National Bolsheviks, then sitting in the police station with a broken arm while the National Bolsheviks help him write a statement because he can’t do it himself—that is the main political outcome of the Marches.