Another wave of protests against the rise of import duties sweeps Russia.
Last weekend saw protest actions by motorists against the official policy on the import and use of second-hand foreign-made cars. Remembering it was Cosmonauts Day, the protestors recommended President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin going into outer space. The focus of motorists' protests was again Vladivostok where the participants in an unsanctioned rally were detained by the police.
In Vladivostok the regional administration banned motorists from the Citizens' Initiative Partnership (TIGR) from staging their action against rising duties on foreign-made cars on the Korabelnaya Embankment in the city centre on the grounds that the United Russia's Young Guard was planning to stage a picket "against extremism" in the same place at the same time. Instead the motorists were told to hold their rally in the outskirts, but the organisers spurned the offer. Eventually about 200 motorists tried to hold an unsanctioned rally near the Triumph Arch. They carried posters urging President Medvedev, Prime Minister Putin and Primorye Territory Governor Sergei Darkin to go into outer space. The protest took place on Cosmonauts Day so that the slogan "fitted the occasion", one of the protestors told Kommersant. One angry young man was enraged by the posters and tried to tear them up and run away. The police chased him down and bundled him into their van before turning their attention to the protesting motorists. They used bullhorns to warn those gathered that their action was illegal and ordered them to disperse. The protestors did not resist and started folding their posters, however, the OMON started detaining the activists all the same. This time around the use of force was not so heavy as on December 21, 2008 when the Zubr OMON unit flown into Vladivostok from outside Moscow brutally dispersed a rally protesting against growing import duties, detaining and beating up more than 60 people. Yesterday only five people were taken to the police station in Vladivostok where they were registered as having committed administrative offenses.
In St Petersburg motorists also combined their protest action with the celebration of Cosmonauts Day. About 50 people gathered in Park Aviatorov, sent the current leaders into outer space in the shape of black condoms inflated with helium. Before the action its participants drove along the ring-road from the Mega-Parnas complex to Park Aviatorov. Altogether 20 cars took part. En route they were pulled over by traffic police officers ostensibly to check their papers.
The space theme was the leitmotif of the protests in Moscow. About a dozen activists from the Russian Federation of Car Owners gathered on Bolotnaya Square with an improvised paper rocket with Vladimir Putin's portrait and the caption: "Duties, technical regulations, fuel prices". "Put deputies in Kalina (cars) and the Premier in a hand car", "Raise living standards not import duties" were some of the posters carried by the protestors.
"Rally activists all over Russia are coming under heavy pressure," said Sergei Kanayev, an executive of the Russian Car Owners Federation. "The authorities warned many motorists' clubs to stay away from the protests, so we did not get as many people as we could everywhere".
In Krasnoyarsk the members of the regional car owners movement staged a picket demanding a stop to the preparation of technical regulations that would virtually ban cars imported from Japan, the US, Canada and other countries (the document is being drafted and may come into force after 2010). The protestors unfurled posters with the slogans: "Increase duties three times," "An iron curtain for modern cars", "Russian roads need cars to match", "Yes to cars without safety bags". "Why Drive Lancer Evolution if We have Lada Revolution?", "Dump quality used Zhiguli in the Japanese market". The organisers plan to send all their slogans to Vladimir Putin by registered mail.
By Yevgeny Buranov, Alexei Pastukhov, Dmitry Chernyshev
