Russian nationalist groups plan to bring 20,000 people onto the streets of central Moscow to mark the Day of People’s Unity. After last weekend’s disorderly protests in the capital, many fear the mood of extremism could reach boiling point.
Nationalist leaders applied to the city’s authorities for permission to march on Monday. Activists want to bring together thousands of people on one of the city’s main thoroughfares and march towards Moscow’s central squares. The action is timed to coincide with the Day of People’s Unity, celebrated in Russia on November 4.
The march is to end with a concert and demonstration in central Moscow. “We don’t want to march somewhere away from the central streets, where nobody will see or hear us,” said Aleksandr Belov, the leader of the “Russians” movement. If the city administration designates Shevchenko embankment [on the right bank of the Moscow River in the west of the capital] as the venue for the gathering, as they have done before, activists will defy the instruction and head downtown anyway, added Belov.
“The people of Russia have to know what nationalists think of the recent developments in the country’s politics ahead of the coming elections,” the nationalist leader claimed.