Why should Russian special police squad feel ashamed?

Hey guys! We felt like we needed to translate our latest piece about protests in Saint-Petersburg into English so that everybody could understand them. We also added some new information we just got this morning. Here it is.

All major TV channels in Russia are showing enormous crowds wearing caps and scarves with the ‘United Russia’  logo on it, in the center of Moscow, happily chanting obviously bullshit slogans like ‘Medvedev, victory!’. They are being protected by rows of the huge special police squad in full riot gear that vaguely remind orcs from the Lord Of The Rings. It is also widely known that most of the people in the pro-government rallies are either getting paid (the souls are sold pretty cheap nowadays - around 500 – 1500 rubles/about 14 - 48 dollars, per person, you can even look it up on the Internet) or get taken there by buses from universities, colleges or (sometimes) their workplaces as (that’s what the students are told) an obligatory part of the curriculum.

There are also other groups of people who get stuffed into police vehicles and buses and sometimes beaten up by the same brave policemen. The difference is – the ones who are likely (or more like destined) to get detained are not wearing the ‘right’ ‘United Russia’ merch and are not shouting the right pro-government stuff.

Today (December 6^th) the protests in the center of Saint-Petersburg were shut off before they had a chance to properly start. A city news agency Fontanka.ru reported that, obviously, the police started detaining the demonstrators as soon as they arrived to the meeting up point by the central subway station. The police are legally required to warn the protestors that the protest is not authorized by the city government (yep, there is in fact a law in Russia that makes it obligatory to authorize any street events or gatherings or demonstrations with the city government – and if you don’t have the confirmation, you are most likely to end up in the not-so-friendly police department) and that they will be detaining the ones who take part in it – there is a ton of reports that on the 6^th the police failed to give any such warnings until there was a large crowd (well, they generally failed as human beings, but we think you already know that one).

They were arresting everyone. The shiny black helmets of the riot police were regrouping all the time, making weird shapes and circling the protestors and, if you looked from the balcony of the nearby shopping mall, they reminded of a giant slimy black insect (and also probably a bit of a pile of shit, okay). You weren’t allowed to shout any slogans and the police reacted especially bad when the crowd chanted ‘Shame, shame, shame’ to the police each time that they stuffed some newly caught protesters into riot vans. The ones who chanted were the next in the queue to get detained, naturally, and the ones who just sung the national anthem had some time to run away or immediately shut the hell up and look like they were just passing by. Also, just standing in the square in front of the subway station was prohibited as well and anyone who felt rebellious enough to do so got circled by two rows of the police and put in a police bus.

The police would have probably arrested more, they looked like they only got in the mood, but there was just one lonely police bus left and the area cleared up because all the streets nearby were blocked and people couldn’t actually get in.

One of the contributors to our zine got detained as well. Natasha got circled in the center of the square, with other people, just singing the national anthem and Russian folklore songs, and the last person to actually see her was the co-editor of the zine and the photographer, Anya. Anya says that while she took photos, Natasha jumped, blew her kisses and sang. Dangerous and extremist, right? Natasha now has access to her twitter and she tells that before they got taken to the police department, they were driven around the city like tourists on a guided tour (in a police bus) and that one of the windows of the bus she was in got smashed by someone from the street. The people who smashed the window were caught too, and then put in the same merry bus, that carried on with its long journey to the police department.

Later in the evening Natasha told us that policemen told the detained that they were going to hold them for the night till the court in the morning – and also that this was an order ‘from above’ – and that doesn’t mean from some God or ‘that’ above at all - it’s Russian way of saying that the orders basically come from the government.

Lawyers just asked us to remove the photos from our site because the sneaky government people find ways to use them AGAINST those who were detained, even though the photos clearly show that they were peaceful in every way possible. So, yes. Enjoy your Internet and our video from the riot while you can, guys, and see you.

P.S. There is also some footage from the live streams from the protests, for example here.