Russia threatens violence, opposition caves

Russia's OMON riot police doing what they do

For the last couple of months, hopes of an uprising in Russia had been focused on the city of Kaliningrad. An anti-government protest there attracted 10,000 people on January 30, a shocking turnout, the biggest for at least five years. The people were really pissed off, and they seemed to be doing more about it than bitching in their shabby kitchens this time. Another major protest had been planned for March 20. Putin was getting nervous.

But on Friday, the region’s reviled governor, the Kremlin-appointed Georgy Boos, made everything better again. He met with the local opposition leaders in his office for four and half hours, and at the same time, in the city’s stadium four hundred yards away, two battalions of riot police were practicing how to bust heads and arrest people. The opposition got the message. They called off their demonstration.

“There are suspicions … that the government is preparing to make an example out of us, to beat the protesting mood out of the people,” said an opposition member of the city council, Solomon Ginzburg. “We can’t subject our citizens to fire houses and rubber bullets.”

What they got in exchange for quiet were ridiculous promises. Boos said he would break the political monopoly of Putin’s party in Kaliningrad, he would lower utility prices and taxes, he would create jobs and housing and better health care. He might as well have promised to turn the region into Switzerland. But the people believed him, or are at least pretending to. The point is they still aren’t ready for a fight, and having seen the way OMON riot cops break up protests in Moscow, I don’t really blame them. But it’s sad. I thought it may have been the start of something.

Via Kommersant